09 January 2011

Salt Lake streetlights may soon run on solar power

Suman Chakraborti | TNN 


Kolkata: Salt Lake may soon have solar-powered streetlights. After its formation last June, the Bidhannagar Municipality’s Trinamool-run board had submitted a proposal to West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation (WBGEDC) to install about 100 solar panels for use as streetlights in the township. 
    “The Bidhannagar Municipality has shown interest in illuminating 100 streetlights with solar power. They have also informed us that they have made budgetary allocations to meet this goal,” WBGEDC managing director S P Gon Chaudhuri said. However, the formal process is yet to start. 
    Presently, the civic body’s annual electricity bills for streetlights is around Rs 35 lakh. The municipality has allocated Rs 40 lakh in its current fiscal year budget to switch 100 of its streetlights to solar power. Civic officials said use of solar power is an integral part of the new board’s programme for a clean and 
green city. Regular disposal of accumulated waste is also part of the programme. 
    With WBGEDC’s help, the civic body has already installed three 250 watt sodium vapour lamps to illuminate one of the traffic intersections near the 
municipality building. “Each of them have been running uninterrupted for the past three months,” Gon Chaudhuri said. There are further plans to beautify more such Islands with solar panels. 
    Previously, there were numerous complaints that parts of the township were poorly lit. Residents complained that inadequate streetlights around Central Park, Karunamoyee and Duttabad had given a spurt to crimes like eve-teasing and molestation, making women feel unsafe to move about these areas after dark. 
    One of the new technologies that the state power department is planning to introduce in the city is the smart grid system which could also be applicable to Salt Lake. “For example, if there is load-shedding in one area, the smart grid will system will divert power from areas lit up by automatically switching off air conditioners in them. The offloaded power can at least run lights and fans in areas hit by load shedding,” Gon Chaudhuri explained.