August 11, 2014
India`s first floating solar power panel to come up in Rajarhat
The country's first floating solar powerpanel will come up on a water-body beside the Eco Park by November. The 15 KWsolar power generating panel would be set up beside Eco Park in New Town. Theproject will be implemented under central funding by the Arka Ignou College ofRenewable Energy. It will be the country's first floating solar panel to beexecuted under central government funding of Rs 40 lakh.
The New Town Kolkata Development Authority(NKDA), early next year, will also set up a canal-top solar power panel on alink-up canal flowing near Eco Park that will generate 500KW solar power everyday. The canal-top solar panel will be the state's first.
The NKDA has started work of setting up a500 KW canal-top solar power project at an estimated cost of more than Rs 1crore. An agency has been selected through an e-tender process and approved bya committee headed by the director of West Bengal Renewable Energy DevelopmentAgency (WBREDA) for the purpose.
The canal-top solar project, which is apart of the Union ministry of new and renewable energy's Solar City programme,was prepared by the solar cell of the Indian Institute of Engineering, Scienceand Technology (formerly known as BESU), Shibpur. It is a flagship canal-topsolar project and would be fully funded by the development authority.
The project consisted of using sloped steelstructure laid across a link canal flowing beside the Eco Park. The panel willgenerate 500KW power, which will be able to light up the entire Eco Parkspreading over 480 acres. The NKDA will lay the most efficient solar panels forthe flagship project, which is also a part projects aimed at developing thetownship as a solar city as declared by the Centre.
The NKDA will use a net metering system inwhich the power that will be generated and put to the grid every day will bemeasured. The advantage of laying the solar panels on top of canals is that notonly there will be no requirement for land for the solar power plant, but thecanal will also be saved from accumulation of external wastes.
The image used in this story is a representative one.
