Hyderabad: Solar power trees, which use a fraction of the land required for solar power plants, are being developed mainly to cater to the domestic sector that is stressed for space.
The Centre provides incentives and concessions to set up solar power plants but these have benefited the commercial and industrial sectors more than the domestic sector.
The main problem in the requirement of land to set up solar power plants in the domestic sector. It takes 3.5 acres to generate 1 MW of solar power.
To ease this difficulty, the Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), a constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has developed a solar power tree.
The ‘tree’ requires less space and also retains the character of the land. So much so that they can be set up even on apartment rooftops.
According to an official, the ‘tree’ can be installed on cultivable land which can be used for farming. According to the power ministry, solar power trees were set up in three places in West Bengal as a pilot project and were found to be functioning effectively.
