Solar Power Tree

• The Ministry of Science and Technology has come up with a 'Solar Power Tree', an innovative way to generate electricity using solar power in a limited space.
• It has been developed by the CSIR-Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-CMERI), a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
• It takes only 4 square feet of land for a 5 KW Solar Power tree, whereas in a conventional layout, it requires 400 square feet of land.
• By holding the photovoltaic panels at a higher height, on an average it gets more sunrays for one hour in a day. As a result, it is possible to harness 10-15% more power in comparison to a conventional layout on ground.
• It has a battery back-up of 2 hours on full load, hence giving light even after sunset.
• It is facilitated with water sprinkler at the top for self-cleaning of panels, that increases the efficiency of the solar panels.
• The estimated cost of the device is around Rs. 5 Lakh for a 5 KW specification.
• The device has been functioning effectively at three places in West Bengal as a pilot project. As a future prospect, the Solar Power Tree would be developed in a rotatable module, which would have a motorized mechanism to align itself with the movement of the Sun during the day. Hence, it would be possible to harness 10-15% more power over and above the current capacity.

Analysis:

• Solar Power Tree innovatively addresses the challenge of increasing demand for Green Energy by gainfully utilizing scarce land resources in the country.
• The Solar Power Tree harnesses solar energy for producing electricity with an innovative vertical arrangement of solar cells. It thus reduces the requirement of land as compared to conventional Solar Photovoltaic layout, on one hand, while keeping the land character intact on the other.
• Even the cultivable land can be utilized for solar energy harnessing along with farming at the same time. The innovation finds its viability both in rural and urban areas.
• India is endowed with abundant free solar energy. Using the country’s deserts and farm land and taking advantage of 300 to 330 sunny days a year, India could easily generate 5,000 trillion kilowatt-hours of solar energy.
• Solar energy can transform India and help to bring about decentralized distribution of energy, thereby empowering people at the grassroots level and eliminating the need for costly expansion of transmission and distribution systems.
• Solar power can solve three problems which India is facing-cost , reliability, clean environment and energy needs.
• It can also eliminate the need for building new or expanding existing transmission and distribution lines as solar powered micro grids can take substantial load .

By: Vishal