Vision of a village...

Was in a tour of South when a news item caught my attention. Odanthurai, a village 40 km from Coimbatore, was delivering free solar electricity and renewable energy to it's 8000 residents! What a powerful vision and what a powerful execution!  What has been done once can be done again! Imagine building such models of self-sustained villages across the nation! We need empowered village renewable committees, mechanisms for extending loans to such village committees to enable their sustainability programs. 

Had an inspiring discussion with Harish Hande, Selco at WEF. We need new operating models, new paradigms. Can we replace the model of electricity generation, transmission lines with new generation clean energy solutions like Solar, biomass, LEDs for energy efficiency and a pay-per-charge/use community service options? I believe this is very much feasible....Odanthurai shows the way!

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Impact of budget 2010

Excise duty on PV/Solar panels waived - while LED central excise duty is reduced to 4%.

Allocation for renewable energy increased to 1000 crores. Govt is planning to set a national clean energy fund to target 20000 MW of solar power by 2022.

All is well!

In defense of design 1

Was consulted by Mr Amar Kohli, Panchsheel on the prohibitive running cost of his Gas fired 389 litre boiler based residential heating system. Tragic - but as I explained to the plumber and to Mr Kohli, there were a number of design weaknesses in his current installation which were responsible for a high running cost of 1 cylinder/day! At Rs.450/- ($10) per day that is almost a whopping $300/- per month expense!!

What were these design weaknesses? Firstly, the pipe dia from the gas geyser to the house was 1" - we normally give a 1/2" design and that means that he was having to cover 4 times the dead-spill water and two times the heat loss! Also, since he was using a circulating pump, the water in the pipe length - my estimate is approx 150' =22 litres! - would pump back in his main tank and then he was mixing approx 2-300 litres of cold water in the tank every 24 hours!

Good engineering is good design and good workmanship combined. I have recommended that he reviews adding a SWHS in a series design so that he feeds hot water into his current system and dramatically slashes his heating costs. And aim at taking the first 20 litres of cold water out into watering his garden/other uses. My current analysis is that with some prudence he can cut down on his heating costs to 20% of the current expense.

Sometimes, money just cannot make up for poor design!

Positive Quote

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches" ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.
Herbert Kaufman

...From our garden!

My solar water heater

200 LPD Solar Water Heater System, 36 ETC tubes w/o Electric backup at 541/9 Faridabad.

Make: Sudarshan Saur Shakti Pvt Ltd, Aurangabad.

Driven by a will to contribute to a green world, and by a need in a perpetually energy-deficient state, I installed my first 200 LPD SWHS at my 1000 sq yard home in Faridabad.

There were a number of concerns that the family had when I was putting it up:

- it will never work!
- the expense is too high!!!
- I do not want any work in 'my' bathroom
- it won't work in the winters!

...and so on!

A year on, we have crossed the early adptor's pinch.

- yes, the system works. When October had this usual nip in the air, the SWHS was giving me hot water. In fact, we got hot water thru till end December - and only in end Dec- early Jan did we experience the Delhi fog.

- Interestingly, the system gave hot water on the day of the fog. However, it was luke warm the next day ...guess I may have lost about 11 days this season on fog count. Otherwise the system worked - and worked beautifully.

- Others who have installed the system with the electric backup would not even face this glitch.

- the expense is not too high finally. A 200 LPD system installed to cover 3-4 points will save approx 12-16k of geyser cost - and the government subsidy of 4000/- per 100 lpd and DHBVN subsidy of 3600/- per 100 lpd combine to give a 15,200/- capital subsidy. I look at the electricity savings (approx 6000/- in my case) as sheer profit!

My take - Solar Water heaters make eminent sense, specially for new buildings where u can plan the installation and piping from day 1. Matter of time before it spreads all around!!!

India's Solar Power Initiatives are shining brighter!

Nov 23rd, 09 Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was born. The mission has been launched under the brand "Solar India" and has the twin objective of making "energy secure" and "ecology secure".

National Missions have transformed IT and India Infrastructure. Solar India has potential for doing so as well.

For full details, do send a mail to aggarwal.ashwini@gmail.com with a subject header "Blog: SOLAR INDIA"...