Harish Hande seeks decentralisation of solar power production

The man who has taken solar lights and other solar light-based appliances to inaccessible areas of the country pushed for decentralising solar power production to prevent transmission and distribution losses. Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a workshop on ‘Emerging Solar PV Technology Applications for Academics’ here on Saturday, Chairman of SELCO-India H. Harish Hande said big solar power plants lead to conflict with land and water and there would be transmission and distribution loss. It’s better to decentralise solar power production and have units at each house/building to meet the power requirement.

Mr. Hande said lack of human resource was acting as a bottleneck in scaling up production of solar power, which was presently as low as 5 per cent in the country. He said the curriculum in the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) should be remodelled to include people who can manage solar power devices and also those who can bring out innovations. These personnel need financial support of banks to become entrepreneurs, he said. He urged academic institutions to innovate products for those in rural areas, such as a solar-powered floor mill and solar powered X-ray machines, which will bring about big changes.

Problems at the grassroots should be addressed by the universities, he said. Earlier, Mr. Hande inaugurated the seminar that was jointly organised by the Mangalore University and IIT Bombay-based kWatt Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Chairman of kWatt Technologies Chetan Singh Solanki said the company has been, for the last two years, involved in the Central government programmes to provide solar lamps in one million houses in tribal and educationally backward areas in the country. They have covered 10,900 villages and reached out to nearly one million children, he said.

Source:TH