A total of 19 remote villages have been approved for creation of solar ‘mini grids’ to provide them access to power supply as of February 2017 in Chhattisgarh, the Central Government has informed.
Village mini-grids are important components of universal access to electricity in the country particularly for those villages where grid connectivity is either not feasible or not cost effective, it informed.
Under the RGGVY scheme launched by the Central Government for attainment of goal of providing access to electricity to all households, a provision of Rs 5.4 billion has been kept as subsidy requirement for electrification of villages where grid connectivity is either not feasible or not cost effective for Decentralized Distributed Generation (DDG) during 11th Plan period.
DDG may be from conventional or renewable or non-conventional sources such as biomass, bio fuel, bio gas, mini hydro, geo thermal, solar, etc.
The funding is on the pattern of 90per cent subsidy from Government of India and 10 per cent loan from Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) or from own funds of the State/loan from financial institutions.
MNRE has released an amount of Rs 30 lakh during 2009-10 for a 20 kWp stand-alone SPV power project at Jhargram village in Gumla district in Jharkhand. Rs.50 lakh and Rs.53 lakh were released during 2010-11 and 2011-12 respectively for a stand-alone SPV power plant in Village Jari, Gumla district in Jharkhand. During 2011-12, MNRE has sanctioned 533 kWp for SPV micro grid projects in the States of Uttar Pradesh(U.P) and West Bengal. An amount of Rs45 lakh has been released for projects in U.P.
The Central Government has approved 11.2 MWp of power generation capacity from grid connected roof-top solar power plants in Chhattisgarh as on January 31, 2017.
Notably, Chhattisgarh will procure additional power from renewable energy sources to the tune of approximately 700 MW by FY 2018, officials informed.
With this the average power purchase cost for Chhattisgarh State Power Distribution Company Ltd (CSPDCL) based on the above power availability will increase from 2.58 Rs/kWh in FY 2015-16 to 3.12 Rs/kWh in FY 2018, they informed.
The SPV Pumps shall be provided with lightening and over voltage protection. The principal aim in this protection is to reduce the over voltage to a tolerable value before it reaches the PV or other sub-systems components. The source of over voltage can be lightening or any other atmospheric disturbance, officials informed.
By Baishakhi Dutta
