Close on heels of commencing use of wastelands in northern districts and rooftops in towns and cities, Gujarat is set to potentially use the existing 19,000 km-long network of Narmada canals across the State for setting up solar panels to generate power.
Power India in August 2011 captured that work on floating solar panels on Narmada Canal has been started.
First phase of this project knows as Canal Solar Power Project near Chandrasan Village of Kadi Talika in Mehsana has already been commissioned and will be inaugurated by Mr. Narendra Modi, Hon’ble Gujarat CM on 24th April 2012.
As captured by Power India, Mr Narendar Modi, last week, has inaugurated a 600-MW solar power project spread across 11 districts.
This included a 214MW Solar Power Park, the largest such generation centre at a single location in Asia. Also, Azure Power, leading independent power producer in solar sector, announced a 2.5 MW rooftops project in Gandhinagar.
Gujarat, which invests nearly Rs 2,000 crore an year on renewable energy, has attracted investments of Rs 9,000 crore so far on solar energy projects.
The pilot project has been developed on a 750-m stretch of the canal by Gujarat State Electricity Corporation (GSECL) with support from Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL), which owns and maintains the canal network.
Energy, water security
The pilot project will generate 16 lakh units of clean energy per annum and also prevent evaporation of 90 lakh litres of water annually from the canal. The concept will, therefore, tackle two of the challenges simultaneously by providing energy and water security.
The cost of per megawatt of solar power, in this case, is likely to be much less than the estimated Rs 10-11 crore, as the two banks of the canal will be used to cover the canal by installing solar power panel and the government will not have to spend much on creating basic infrastructure, including land acquisition .
Today, Gujarat has about 458 km of open Main Canal, while the total canal length, including sub-branches, is about 19,000 km at present.
When completed, the SSNNL's canal network will be about 85,000 km long.
Assuming a utilisation of only 10 per cent of the existing canal network of 19,000 km, it is estimated that 2,200 MW of solar power generating capacity can be installed by covering the canals with solar panels.
This also implies that 11,000 acres of land can be potentially conserved along with about 2,000 crore litres of water saved per annum.
Pl find below the snapshot of the commissioned project “India’s First 1 MW Canal-Top Solar Power Project”. (Courtesy: SSNNL)
You can download the full snapshots of this “India’s First 1 MW Canal-Top Solar Power Project” at this link.
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