Solar plants, not gensets, to fuel clean, green Andamans

As part of an ambitious greening effort in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a plan to set up Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) power plants at two sites in Port Blair with battery storage amounting to 25 MW is underway — just short of half the islands’ current operational generation capacity that is predominantly diesel-based.

The proposed solar project is aimed at substantially replacing around 47 MW of diesel-run generation capacity that currently lights up the habitable parts of the archipelago of over 572 islands in the Bay of Bengal, alongside about 10 MW of renewable generation that is operational there currently.

Once the proposed solar capacity is set up, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands would be the first province in India where renewable sources would account for nearly half the generation. More importantly, the setting up of solar power plants with battery storage is being done on such a scale for the first time in the country. According to officials involved in the exercise, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has asked state-owned thermal major NTPC Ltd to set up distributed grid-connected SPV plants with battery storage in Port Blair. This move will help in reducing the cost of electricity generation, cut carbon emission into the atmosphere and enable the phasing out of diesel for electricity generation. Read more…