The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister inaugurated a solar photovoltaic system of 40 kilo watt installed over the roof of the Chief Minister’s Camp Office at Begumpet here on Tuesday morning and directed implementation agencies to expedite setting up of renewable energy projects.
The Camp Office has an energy load of 60 kW (excluding A/Cs). The system works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on direct solar energy and from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on a battery charged by solar energy and then switches over to grid power. The savings on the power bill is about 50 per cent, it said.
The Chief Minister complimented the New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (Nredcap) for its new initiatives and directed AP Transco, the nodal agency for implementation of solar power units, to speed up efforts for implementation of the AP State Solar Policy-2012, which was announced recently.
According to Nredcap, the cumulative capacity sanctioned in the State, including wind, solar, bio-mass based and mini-hydro so far is 4357 MW.
During 2012-13 and 2013-14 about 1444 MW capacity was installed. Of this, up to 2010, 107 MW of wind energy capacity was installed. This has gone up to 500 MW in the last three years.
Under the State Solar Power Policy, Nredcap has installed about 25 MW on a captive and third-party basis.