August | 23, 2015 :: The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has approved a proposed master plan to develop 50 solar cities, including three in the national capital region.
What is a Solar City?
The Solar City aims at minimum 10% reduction in projected demand of conventional energy at the end of five years, through a combination of enhancing supply from renewable energy sources in the city and energy efficiency measures. The basic aim is to motivate the local Governments for adopting renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency measures. In a Solar City all types of renewable energy based projects like solar, wind, biomass, small hydro, waste to energy etc. may be installed alongwith possible energy efficiency measures depending on the need and resource availability in the city.
Need for Solar Cities
Urbanization and economic development are leading to a rapid rise in energy demand in urban areas in our country leading to enhanced Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Many cities around the world are setting targets and introducing polices for promoting renewable energy and reducing GHG emissions and the countries like Australia and USA are developing the solar cities.
Several Indian cities and towns are experiencing rapid growth in the peak electricity demand. The local governments and the electricity utilities are finding it difficult to cope with this rapid rise in demand and as a result most of the cities/towns are facing electricity shortages. In this context, the “Development of Solar Cities” programme is designed to support/encourage Urban Local Bodies to prepare a Road Map to guide their cities in becoming ‘renewable energy cities’ or ‘solar cities’.
The Ministry has already initiated various programmes in the Urban Sector for promoting solar water heating systems in homes, hotels, hostels, hospitals and industry; deployment of SPV systems/devices in urban areas for demonstration and awareness creation; establishment of ‘Akshya Urja Shops’; design of Solar Buildings and promoting urban and industrial waste/ biomass to energy projects. The solar city programme aims to consolidate all the efforts of the Ministry in the Urban Sector and address the energy problem of the urban areas in a holistic manner.
