India's First Solar City
March 06 2009 / by amisampat / In association with Future Blogger.net
Category: Environment Year: 2012 Rating: 4
By Ami Sampat
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy recently announced that the city of Nagpur, Maharashtra will become the country's first solar city by the year 2012. Nagpur will receive ten percent of its energy consumption through renewable energy sources and will also create a foundation for a future Smart Electrical Grid.
Nagpur is the first of sixty solar cities to be developed over the course of five years.
The Ministry explains its reasons for wanting to create a solar city, "To meet the peak electricity demand of cities, to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and expensive oil and gas for energy and to promote increased use of renewable energy, this scheme has been developed."
The ministry will fund half of the total costs, 190 million rupees ($3.7 million), with the state government paying the rest.
Creating a solar city will result in the major restructuring with the use of multiple solar applications. The street lights, traffic lights, and so on will be based on solar energy system. Solar water heaters will also be installed.
