By Solar Times Bureau
They suffer from frequent power cuts, still solar power is not considered for utilization
New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (NREDCAP), the state organization involved in promoting renewable energy, it self is not utilizing clean and safe energy and depends on conventional energy at its office premises, despite of constant power cuts. The NREDCAP’s office situated at Nampally has no solar power system installed at their office, to generate power.
The employees of NREDCAP says that, we are the promoters of renewable energy, but we our self do not utilize the green energy and depend on conventional energy, which does not provide constant power supply and we have to face power cuts for hours. Further they add, solar equipments are stored away at their office without taken in to use.
They say, a frequent power cut disturbs the office environment and stops the entire office work. The power cuts are faced every year in summer, but still higher authorities do not take effective actions against resolving the issue or optimize for solar energy. “Whenever there is a power cut, it is a break time; there are no back-ups like generators or invertors. To let in some sunlight, we open our windows or if it becomes too hot we take a stroll outside,” said an employee.
NREDCAP is a government organization to promote and support people of the state to utilize renewable energy; they provide subsidies on solar equipments, 30% subsidy is provided for installation of one roof-top-photovoltaic system which costs 2.4 lakh per 1 KW. They also provide subsidies on solar heater, lanterns and etc. and they also approve wind energy and biomass energy plants.
“We spend thousands of rupees every month on electricity. Installing roof-top solar panels would decrease our power bill by 20%-30% and ensure uninterrupted power supply for a couple of hours,” said an official. “Ideally, we are supposed to inspire the citizens by going completely solar. But, for various reasons we have not been able to do that and we only focusing on promoting it,” official added.
When asked to the NREDCAP authorities to talk about the issue, “We want to install solar plant, but since their office is at a rented premise, there are some issues with the installation of the plant, we are considering the importance of solar energy and its essentiality, and we will soon come up with solar energy utilization,” said M Kamalakar Babu, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, NREDCAP.