Solar Street Lighting Mooted in City

Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has chalked out plans to generate solar power to meet the growing power demands of the city. A 100-KV capacity solar power project has already been started at a school in Jakkampudi housing complex.The Corporation would take up similar projects at its head office, council hall, head water works, sewerage treatment plants at Ajitsingh Nagar and Ramalingeswara Nagar.Municipal Commissioner C. Hari Kiran said that it was estimated that these projects would cost Rs. 5 crore. Of this, Rs.1.5 crore would be subsidy from the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. Remaining Rs. 3.5 crore would have to be borne by the civic body.With the financial crunch grappling the VMC, it is not in a position to the shoulder that amount. So, plans are afoot to rope in some private agencies to fund the projects. International agencies such as KFW, CDIA, and ICLE have already evinced interest in installing the solar systems. The agencies would recover their investments through power savings made by the Corporation, the Municipal Commissioner said.The Commissioner further said that plans were afoot to use LED lights for street lighting in the city, adding that solar systems would also be used to feed power to traffic signalling system.The Corporation has been making attempts to install solar street lights since 2011. It has installed three solar lights on the premises of the Rajiv Gandhi Park near Pandit Nehru Bus Station (PNBS) on an experimental basis. Plans were made to switch over to solar street lighting in slums as part of the Solar City project. The city is one among the 60 cities that were selected for the project.The officials expected that solar street lighting would be realty by January 2012. On a pilot basis, the streetlights in the hilly areas of One Town were planned to be converted into solar streetlights. The officials then said that funds to the tune of around Rs. 30-35 crore per annum would be allocated for the purpose and the overall budget might go up to Rs. 139 crore. The city has over 27,000 tube lights and the VMC would be able to save power, if the entire street lighting is based on solar power.