Floating solar plants to power Jalood pumping station in Indore

INDORE: Narmada supply system at Jalood will soon be powered by solar energy as Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) plans to set up two floating solar power plants with capacity of 50 megawatt each.

The solar plants will be set up at Jalood and Yeshwant Sagar through fund raised by releasing Masala Bonds. The corporation officials aim to raise Rs 500 crore through these bonds.

IMC’s additional commissioner Veerbhadra Sharma said that they are considering floating solar plants to reduce electricity cost incurred by IMC in supplying water from Jalood to the city.

“If everything falls in place, we would be the first civic body in country to set up floating solar plants. Setting up ground mounted solar plant would require over 450-acre land which is not a feasible option,” he said.

Sharma said that though this idea is in its preliminary stage, it seems to be the most feasible option available.

“Though cost of floating solar system would be a bit high, it would have various other benefits such as high productivity and will also save evaporation loss of the water body,” he said.

IMC pays power bill of Rs 17 crore per month and officials claim that solar plants with 100mw capacity will help IMC reduce electricity cost by nearly Rs 11 crore.

“We would be generating around 1.98 crore unit electricity per months. For initial seven years, our monthly saving would be around Rs 2.05 crore as we would be re-paying the loan and after that it would increase to around Rs 10.58 crore,” he added.

The civic body was also considering an option to use net metering system wherein produced energy would directly go to grid and be adjusted in final bill. However, the officials have dropped this idea as it required a special permission from the government as net metering is allowed for solar power plants of up to 2 megawatt capacity.

IMC has already completed audit survey and have written to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) seeking permission to release Green Masala Bonds by listing it on London Stock Exchange (LSE).

Source: Economic Times