Jung inaugurates solar power plant at Delhi govt school

A 60 kilowatt rooftop solar power plant at a Delhi government school was inaugurated today by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, who described it as a major initiative towards protecting the environment and saving power.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is preparing to install solar panels in 27 of its schools, as part of the 'rooftop solar city project'.
Inaugurating the project at Nagar Palika Bengali Girls Senior Secondary School in Gole Market, Jung said, "This is a historic day for the people of Delhi. Its significance may not be realised at present but when this experiment will take a bigger shape, it will make a huge difference towards protecting environment and saving power."

Speaking on the occasion, NDMC chairman Jalaj Srivastava said, "The solar power generation at these schools will be 110 KW. The installation and commissioning on 26 schools and other buildings is in progress.
"NDMC has been declared solar city by the Ministry of New and Renewable Sources of Energy (MNRE), Govt. Of India. We are the first municipal body to commission its own solar energy plants and feed it to the grid.
"We had signed an MoU with Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for installation of rooftop solar panels on certain buildings in the NDMC area to generate 2MW of electricity," he added.

The chairman also informed that the contract has been awarded to install 4 MW solar rooftop project on more than 50 schools and govt buildings across NDMC areas and sell power produced at Rs 6.35 per kWh which has been approved by MNRE.

"The power generated will be fed into the NDMC grid. In the first phase in the year 2015-16, it is expected to generate 1.7 MW of power from rooftops solar panels on 27 school buildings.
The installation and commissioning of solar panels in total 50 buildings will be completed by next year," he said.
Meanwhile, NDMC has also allowed domestic households to install solar panels on their rooftops and sell the electricity generated to the civic body by connecting their panels with NDMC's power grid.

"The future roadmap of NDMC to promote solar energy is to rope in the rooftop owners to install compact solar energy panels with net metering facilities which means power given to the grid by these rooftops owners will be credited to their bills which will have net saving in their electricity bill," Srivastava said.