Chennai: Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) has made plans to generate nine MW of solar energy from rooftops of its stations and office buildings in next two years and awarded a contract to install one MW grid tied solar plant on the rooftop of the shed in the depot at Koyambedu.
The contract for installing one MW rooftop solar plant is awarded to Su-Kam Power Systems and the work is expected to be completed very soon, said a senior official of CMRL.
The official said that they have also called for expression of interest to install eight mw solar photovoltaic system in elevated stations, depot and under ground station ancillary buildings in the phase I of the metro rail project. CMRL is planning to execute the 8 MW solar project under the RESCO model at a maximum allowable levellised tariff of '5.10 per unit.
Under this model, CMRL will pay for the units generated by the plant and the developer should provide the capital investment. The CMRL has identified 29 locations with a total rooftop area of 79,759 square metre to install 8 MW capacity rooftop solar plant. “We have called for the expression of interest for the project. After this, we will invite tenders. It will take one or two years to commission the project,” said a senior CMRL official.
The generated solar power will be utilised for captive application of CMRL and the surplus power will be fed to the Tangedco grid. The project aims to reduce the fossil fuel based electricity load on main grid and make building self-sustainable from the point of electricity, to the extent possible, the official said.
“The state of the art 1 MW rooftop solar plant at the head office of CMRL shall generate over 5,000 units of electricity/day, thereby helping it to save over Rs 1,12,00,000 lakh rupees in electricity consumption annually. The entire system comprises 20 numbers of 50 Kw Grid Tie String inverters fitted with 3,200 numbers of 315Wp solar panels,” Mr VenkatKanna, assistant manager, Solar Projects, Su-Kam said.
