Power crisis gives big boost to roof-top solar power units

According to experts, on 0average modern photovoltaics (PV) solar panels produce 8 - 10 watts per sq ft of solar panel area. For a 100 sq yd (900 sq ft) house, 400 sq ft of the roof-top can be used for installing solar power unit. This can be roughly utilized to generate 3,600 watts of power or 3.6 KW of power per hour and 18,000 watts of power or 18 kw of power in 5 hoursA Satishraj G Medapatla Hyderabad: At last the State government has been forced to look towards the conventional energy like solar power plants as an alternative power generation system due to the power crisis looming large. With the water reservoirs reaching dead level at hydro power plants and shortage of coal and gas to thermal power plants brought the state to grinding halt affecting the industries, agriculture and domestic sector. Though it was a known fact that captive solar power plants would offer clean and green energy, in AP State it remained in the books and state policies. This year's power crisis forced the State to install the latest grid connected solar power plants on the roof-tops of the government buildings and institutions. Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, on March 20, made an announcement in the Legislative Council about individual solar power production units to be set up on roof-tops of big buildings, Govt. buildings and next day the Chief Minister visited the 'net meter reading, solar control room, solar unit etc. installed at the Vidyut Soudha. The officials said the solar power plant would generate 250 units of power and will provide power to the building during peak hours and it will supply power to the grid when power generated is more than the demand. The net metering system will calculate the power consumed from the grid and power supplied to the grid. Thus the new system would enable the power consumer to get money for the surplus power supplied to the grid. The latest government institution to utilise the roof- top as solar power generating unit is Raj Bhavan and next to follow is Secretariat. At Raj Bhavan, the solar unit would produce 190 units per day while the total consumption is 150 units. According to experts, on average modern photovoltaics (PV) solar panels produce 8 - 10 watts per sq ft of solar panel area. For a 100 sq yd (900 sq ft) house, 400 sq ft of the roof-top can be used for installing solar power unit. This can be roughly utilized to generate 3,600 watts of power or 3.6 KW of power per hour and 18,000 watts of power or 18 kw of power. But we must also consider the power lost due to cloudy times and technicalities like converting Direct Current (Solar) power to Alternating Current to run the electric appliances we can say that roughly 10 kw of power can be generated. This would make a huge difference if every independent house and building tries to harness the abundant solar energy by installing solar panels according to the available space and building structure. Though it is not possible to erect grid connecting mechanism at each and every site, but one single system could be installed for an entire colony and each solay unit can be inter connected. Other than the roof-tops, parking lots can also be utilized as it would also provide shade to the cars and residents. The rain water falling on the solar panels can be diverted to rain water harvesting pits which would also help in recharging ground water. Without the help of government in providing sops and subsidies installing solar power plants in on roof-tops by every building is impossible. As the cost of installation is very high and it would be recovered only after 10 to 20 years if power is utilized for its own. If the power is supplied to the grid for sale the State government announced Andhra Pradesh Solar Power Policy-2012 to encourage large scale solar power generation vide GO MsNo.39, September 26, 2012 & GO Ms No. 44, dated November 16, 2012. As such, APTRANSCO/APDISCOMs have proposed to adopt the Metering Protocol for captive solar power plants who intend to setup in the premises to utilize the generated power to its captive utilities or for sale of generated energy through open access under REC mechanism. The surplus solar energy generated supplied to the grid from the solar plant is eligible for obtaining Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). For recording energy generation and supplying, Energy Meters shall be provided. The developer has to provide appropriate protection system (as per APTRANSCO norms) on the feeder of the at the solar power plant end.