India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has selected 50 cities under its Solar Cities Program.
The program is aimed at reducing the projected demand for conventional energy in the selected cities by 10 percent over five years.
Such cities will have to both enhance supply from renewable energy sources and implement energy efficiency measures.
The program encourages the selected cities to adopt different types of renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, biomass, small hydro, and waste-to-energy.
The cities may have between half a lakh and fifty lakh people. But northeastern states, hilly states, islands and union territories have a special category.
According to an official statement, masterplans are ready for 44 cities. Also, stakeholders’ committees have been constituted in all the 50 cities.
In 26 of these cities, Solar City cells have been created. Also, solar photovoltaic projects with aggregate capacity of 8.16 MWp and Solar Water Heating Systems with aggregate capacity of 7,895 meter square collector area have been sanctioned to 12 solar cities.
A total of 66.5 crore has been sanctioned for masterplans, solar city cells, promotional activities and installation of renewable energy projects.
And Rs 22.85 crore has been released toward the requirement so far, an official report has stated.
Ajith Kumar S
editor@greentechlead.com