In the Sean Connery starrer, You Only Live Twice, they bring three large suitcases to a terrace and from the contents of the boxes they quickly assemble a fighter plane for the 007. What the wind turbine manufacturer, Gamesa, has in mind is somewhat similar — do-it-your-self kits for rooftop solar-wind hybrid plants. At least, that is the dream of Mr Ramesh Kymal, Chairman and Managing Director, Gamesa India.
An intense R&D effort is underway at Gamesa's India headquarters in Chennai, where, on the rooftop of the building, the company has put up a demonstration 40 kW hybrid system, comprising four solar panels and four small wind turbines. It has cost the company Rs 1.7 lakh a kW, but Mr Kymal is confident that the costs could be brought down.
Gamesa's experience has been mixed. The solar panels are working beautifully, producing 4-5 units of electricity a day per kilo watt. However, the windmills are not, and there is a useful lesson in it — which is that even on rooftops micro-siting is required. Mindful of vibrations and its impact on structural stability of the building, Gamesa just put up the windmills on end-points of the pillars. Consequently, one windmill is affecting the performance of the next.
Mr Kymal says power at Rs 10 a unit is easy and the effort is on to halve it. Gamesa, he said, is also working on a prototype of a small-sized solar-powered reverse osmosis plant that can produce clean drinking water. These plants, he says, could solve the water problem in villages. “Every village has a water source,” he said, “only the water is dirty.”