TP Renewable Microgrid (TPRMG), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Power, has commissioned its 100th solar microgrid project.
The project, commissioned on November 26, 2020, in a small remote village of Ratnapur, Uttar Pradesh, coincides with TPRMG’s first anniversary.
This 30kW microgrid project harnesses energy from the sun using solar panels. The microgrid has a battery as an energy storage system. For the back-up power supply, a DG-set has been installed in the microgrid itself, enabling 24×7 power supply to the community.
Off-grid still relevant
While the Government of India has achieved 100 per cent electrification under the Saubhagya scheme, communities in Indian states, especially, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh still have unreliable power supply and face unscheduled power cuts. Many of the micro-enterprises still use non-grid sources of electricity to run their machines such as attachakki (flour mills), oil expellers etc.
To bridge this gap, TPRMG shall provide a cheap and reliable power supply through this off-grid AC microgrid solution.
100 projects
With the commissioning of Ratnapur project, the total installed capacity of TPRMG’s solar microgrid projects stands at 3MW. The company took only 10 months to commission its first hundred microgrids, in spite of COVID-19 restrictions. However, it is now focusing to commission its next 100 microgrid in less than 4 months’ time. Currently, there are around 50 projects which are in various stages of project execution.
“We are extremely proud of this achievement. It is a huge milestone for us to be able to commission our 100th microgrid within less than a year. This also marks TPRMG’s first anniversary. Through our off-grid solutions like solar microgrids, we wish to help rural communities in India to meet their urgent power needs in a quick and economical manner. This project will not only provide reliable power supply to the villages, but also work towards improving the livelihood and bring about socio-economic development of the community as a whole,” said Praveer Sinha, CEO & MD, Tata Power Company Ltd.
Clean fuel
The company has laid special focus on the replacement of diesel operated irrigation pumps with an electrically-operated motors and pumps powered by solar microgrids. Similarly, the diesel-operated machines such as the local attachakki, oil expeller, rice huller etc. shall also be replaced with electric supply.
Featured photograph shows the microgrid commissioned by TPRMG on November 2020, in Uttar Pradesh’s Ratnapur village.