Andhra Pradesh is going to be the first State in the country and Asia to store solar energy to facilitate power supply to agriculture sector, bringing an end to farmers’ dependence on grid-based power supply for cultivation.
The move to store around 100 MW power was taken month after Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu returned from the US.
The solar energy storage facilities are available in the US and in some of the European countries.
The CM drafted the blueprint for the action plan after holding a detailed discussion with Energy Department Principle Secretary Ajay Jain and CMD of AP Transco K Vijayanand.
Following which, the Power Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh took up a pilot project and floated an international tender for lithium ion batteries with storage capacity of 1 mega watt.
Some of companies, like Power Grid Corporation of India and L&T, have only experimented this concept with 500 KV and 300 KV storage capacity.
AP Transco is establishing 1 MW solar energy storage system in Kassumarra village of Nellore District and Makkuva village of Vizayanagaram District.
The Transco will set up two solar plants with installed capacity of 5MW in both villages under 33/11 KV substations. Later on the solar plants will be integrated with Lithium Ion Battery Storage System. The power generated from solar plants will be supplied to agriculture sector directly in day time and surplus power will be stored in Li batteries. And on cloudy days, the power stored in Li batteries will be supplied to agricultural pumps.
“Power will be supplied to agri-pumps in special conditions if Li batteries are discharges only,” K Raja Babu, Chief Engineer of AP Transco, informed The Pioneer.
He said Naidu also wants to reduce the losses of transmission and distribution and lessen the upstream transmission expenditure incurring on 220KV, 400 KV substations.
K Vijayanand, CMD, AP Transco and Principle Secretary to IT Department, who is monitoring the pilot project, has taken steps to complete the pilot project within six months not beyond January 2018.
AP Transco has already held pre-bid meeting on supply of Li Batteries recently.
If the experiment of Andhra Pradesh becomes a success, the Indian Power Sector might undergo a major change, said officials.
Source: Daily Pioneer
