Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal on Tuesday inaugurated the world’s largest solar rooftop plant in Beas, about 40 km from Amritsar.This 11.5 MW rooftop plant is spread across 82 acres and is the largest of its kind in the world.The solar power plant, made at the cost of Rs 139 crores, has been built by Radha Saomi Satsang Beas (RSSB), a religious organization.
In order to promote green technology, the plant will generate about 150 lakh units of power annually and is expected to offset 19,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. In addition to this, seven other solar plants of 8 MW each were also inaugurated, thus making the Beas Dera campus the only campus generating solar power of 19.5 MW at multiple rooftops in the country.Prakash Singh Badal lauded the state’s efforts to emerge as a front runner in solar power generation.
Punjab has made immense contributions to tap the power potential from various renewable energy resources. Prime Minister Narendra Modi awarded Punjab for being one of the best performing states for capacity addition of solar energy during Re-Invest-2015.Highlighting the significance of this unique solar power project at Dera Beas, the New & Renewable Energy Resources Minister Bikram Singh Majithia told ANI News that this project with enormous environmental friendly benefits would be instrumental in the abatement of four lakh tonnes of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the next 25 years, which was equivalent to planting nearly two lakh trees.
He also said that the power generated from this project will benefit about 8000 homes, as reported by Business Standard.Currently, Punjab is generating 470 MW of solar power and another project of 500 MW is still in the pipeline. The state government is hopeful that Punjab will generate about 1000 MW of solar power in the year 2016/17 and by the year 2022, it will achieve its target of 2552 MW.