SCCL establishing solar power plant at 120 meter height in Ramagundam

The 22 MW plant is being established at a cost of Rs 126 crore. Rs 5 crore are being spent to generate 1MW of solar power.

Peddapalli: The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) is establishing first of its kind solar power generation unit at 120 meter height, on the top of the Over Burden (OB) of opencast-I coal mine in Ramagundam-III area. The 22 MW plant is being established at a cost of Rs 126 crore. Rs 5 crore are being spent to generate 1MW of solar power.

Singareni usually takes up massive plantations on the top of OBs to check pollution being generated through mining activity. Now, it has come up with an innovative idea to establish solar power plants on OBs for effective utilization of the land.

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In order to study the plant, officials from Coal India also visited the solar unit and appreciated the efforts done by the Singareni officials.

Explaining details about the project to reporters who visited the unit as part of a press tour, Assistant General Manager, RG-III, P Elisha said that for the first time, a solar plant was being established on the top of OB of OCP-I, which is going to celebrate 50th anniversary in October.

Informing that the 50 MW unit has already been established in 250 acres in OCP-I, he said that they are working with a motto to enhance solar power generation capacity of RG-III to 100 MW by 2025-26.

Explaining about power consumption in the Ramagundam coal belt area, he informed that per day, 6 lakh units of power was required for industries while 2 lakh units for domestic purposes.

Rs 80 lakh is being spent to purchase power for industrial purposes. Stating that it was possible to reduce the power burden with the generation of solar power, AGM informed that so far this, SCCL saved Rs 4 crore while Rs 7 crore last year.

According to company officials, per annum, Singareni was paying Rs 450 crore to NPDCL to purchase 750 million units of power being utilized for the needs of coal mines as well as residential areas of its workers. In Ramagundam area, Rs 250 crore is being spent on power purchase.

Since it has become a huge burden for the company, the management is focusing on renewable energy. With an aim to reduce power burden as well as emerge as zero carbon emission, SCCL has fixed a target to generate 534 MW solar power.

It has started the construction of 300 MW plants in nine areas of SCCL in 2018 and commissioned them. In the second phase, Singareni has taken up 232 MW in eight areas including Mandamarri 67.5 MW, Ramagundam-III (37), Singareni Thermal Power center (37.5), Sattupalli (32.5), Srirampur (27.5), Illandu 15, Bhupalapalli (10) and Ramagundam-I 5 MW.

About 800 million units of solar power is being generated in different areas of Singareni.