Gujarat temple cuts down on electricity, funds college with saved money

In an attempt to conserve electricity, the management of the Badrinarayan temple in Gujarat's Surat district has turned to solar energy for managing the shrine's energy usage and are utilizing the money saved to sponsor education in the area.

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Praveen Chandra, one of the trustees of the temple, said that the electricity bill used to be very high, so they decided to switch to solar power instead. "The motive behind this was to save money. The bill has dropped from Rs 1.5-2 Lakh per month to Rs 10-12,000 per month. With the money that is saved every month, the shrine has started a college and a school specifically for Sanskrit," Praveen Chandra said.

The trustee also said that fifty-kilowatt capacity solar panels have been installed on the terrace of the temple that cost a total of twenty-five lakh rupees.

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The Minister of State New & Renewable Energy (MNRE), Power and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship,  R.K. Singh in the Lok Sabha on Thursday stated, "Private sector developers selected through transparent bidding processes were taking up most of the renewable energy projects in the country in Lok Sabha on Thursday. Government has issued standard bidding guidelines to enable the distribution licenses to procure power at competitive rates in a cost-effective manner."

R.K. Singh discussed the various initiatives being taken up by the ministry to assist the upward projection of renewable energy growth in the country. Moreover, the charges and losses of the Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) for inter-state sale of solar and wind power shall also be waived for renewable projects commissioned by December 2022.

Renewable energy projects

According to a report released by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy  (MNRER), renewable energy projects with a total capacity of 36,803.68 MW have been implemented across various states between April 2016 and October 2019. While solar and wind power projects were the major contributors to this capacity with 24,933.45 MW and 10,312.63 MW respectively, other smaller projects like small hydropower projects added 373.15 MW, bio-power projects 1,135.45 MW and waste to energy projects contributed 49 MW. With 8,683.8 MW, Karnataka installed the highest capacity during this period.

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