Net Metering Workshop

Yesterday, we held a day-long workshop on net metering, in the context of Solar Energy use. At Rabindra Tirtha. Dr AKTripathi, Director, MNRE, GoI, Mr Girija Shankar, Energy Economist BEE, Director WBREDA, MD NTESC and many others participated.

The idea is as follows:

To meet energy demands and for climate reasons, we must use Solar Energy as much as possible. Solar Panels in rooftops, canal-tops, ground--tops can act as virtual distributed and decentralised powerhouses to generate additional clean energy. Consumers may pay only the net electrical power consumed i.e. gross/actual consumption minus power injected into the electricity grid. The savings in power bill will encourage consumers to invest in rooftop solar plants.

I argued that this will be most attractive in new projects and towns like New Town and others since the cost of rooftop solar plants will be only marginal to the cost of construction of a new home. Dr Tripathy said that technological problems with inverters needed to inject solar power in grids have now been solved.

During lunch break, a demonstration of electric scooters was made. I drove one around the internal path of Rabindra Tirtha: it did well @ 25 kmph. It can go 50-70 km in one charge. Costs Rs 40,000+ we were told.

The electric scooter that I drove around Rabindra Tirtha pathway:

Useful for services in New Town, Salt Lake etc

L-R:

Gopal Ghose, A.K.Tripathy, me, Girija Shankar, Sutanu Kar, P P Datta

* * *I also inspected other ongoing works in New Town. The test piles of the third Bagjola Bridge had started. A photo:

Third Bagjola Bridge started:

Connecting Action Area III and II

Credit: our-green-energy.blogspot.com