Solar heat collectors capacity to increase five fold

Mumbai, Sep 19 (UNI) The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has planned a five-fold increase in Solar Heat Collector capacity during the 11th Five-year Plan period to five million sq metres from about one million sq m achieved during the tenth plan, Dr T C Tripathi, Advisor, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said here today.

Till the end of 9th plan, solar heat collector capacity of India was only 6.5 lakh sq metres, he said while inaugurating a conference on 'Solar Air Heating Technology for Industries' at Indian Merchants' Chamber here.

Dr Tripathi said that for encouraging the use of solar power, the government of Rajasthan, Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttaranchal were offering attractive rebate on power tariff.

''Even Municipal Corporations such as those in Thane have been offering rebate in property tax for buildings that enabled use of solar power,'' he added.

He said that India was a tropical country with sun radiation available round the year, ''enabling us to harvest heat to the extent of 4 to 7 mw per sq. metre daily, even if we succeed in converting 2 per cent of the sun light available in the Indian subcontinent, we will be theoretically able to generate 6,00,000 mw.

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