Bengaluru: In a green initiative, the transport department plans to use solar energy as a back-up to operate 229 bus depots in various parts of the state. This is in addition to the electric buses it plans to soon introduce in the city. Speaking to the Deccan Chronicle, Transport Minister, DC Thammanna said the state’s road transportation corporations were the first in the country to opt for solar energy for their bus depots.
Each solar power plant at the 229 bus depots will generate upto 500 megawatts of power , according to him. The solar energy will act as a back-up in the event of power outages and ensure uninterrupted maintenance work at the depots. “Installing solar panels for power generation is not difficult. So we have planned to generate solar energy for our use at the depots. This is the first time such a step has been taken by a transport corporation.
It is a small effort to use alternative forms of energy for our daily operations. . We have already started third-party land auditing to assess how much land is available in all four transport corporations in the state,” the minister added .
The scheme covers depots of the KSRTC, BMTC, NEKRTC and NWKRTC. The transport department has over 2000 acres of land across the state and can easily establish the solar power plants for its use, explain officials. “This effort of installing solar panels is to reduce the losses of the corporations. If all goes well, the Karnataka transport system will soon be the best in the country,” added a senior official of the KSRTC.
