TIDAL POWER PLANT IN MAHARASHTRA

New Delhi, 6 November 2006

NEW DELHI, November 7 (INFA): Maharashtra Energy Development Agency (MEDA) has successfully tested a tidal power plant at Budhgaon in Guhanagar tehsil of Ratnagiri district. A test plant with a capacity of 25 kw has been set up with R&D support from the Sangli-based company “Apar Urja”.

The Maharashtra project was taken up following the pioneering efforts of the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency (WBREDA) in initiating a tidal power project in Sunderbans region.

The MEDA and ‘Apar Urja’ now plan to install a fully functional tidal plant with a capacity of 100 kW-250 kW, depending on the requirements of the neighbouring villages, with financial assistance from the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES), Government of India. 

According to MEDA sources, the tidal plant would achieve a plant load factor (PLF) of around 80 per cent and hence would be highly economical. The plant is expected to produce power by the end of this year and commercial production would commence after studying the results for a few years.

Maharashtra has a 720-kilometer-long coastline and according to MEDA, the State has the potential of producing around 1000 MW from the sea waves.

Meanwhile, Pune Municipal Transport (PMT), in a bid to reduce the high levels of pollution in the city, has decided to run its entire fleet of 832 municipal transport buses on environment-friendly biodiesel. 

This decision has been spurred by the encouraging results obtained from experiments conducted on over 100 buses using 20 per cent biodiesel and 80 per cent diesel.

Besides, the fuel blend would also reduce the expenditure of the PMT by 5 to 10 per cent, since biodiesel is priced lower than conventional diesel. 

Initially, biodiesel extracted from palm oil or any other edible oil will be used, instead of Jatropha, which is till in the germination phase in most parts of the country.

Retrofitting of the buses will also be done to upgrade the old engines and hence reduce pollution. The retrofitting drive is backed by the United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) through a grant of 4296,000 (Rs. 1.37 crore) awarded to the Pune Municipal Corporation, making Pune the first city to introduce retrofitted engines in public transport vehicles.

The pilot project would involve retrofitting 20 PMT Euro-2 buses. ---INFA