TN Governor to lay stone for solar project in MSU today

TIRUNELVELI: The Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit would lay the foundation stone for a captive solar power generation unit at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (MSU) in Tirunelveli on its 25th convocation day here on Wednesday.

Said to be the first largest solar power generation programme among the universities in the state with a generation capacity of 1 Mwe, the work for the construction of the unit would commence immediately after the Governor formally lays the cornerstone for the project.

The project costing Rs five lakh, is being fully sponsored by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) grant under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Siksha Abhiyan (RUSA) of the Higher Education department, according to Dr K Baskar, vice chancellor of MSU and is expected to produce up to 15 lakh units of electricity in a year.

“Of the 15 lakh units produced by the captive solar power unit, 80 per cent would be allotted for the consumption of the university and the remaining 20 per cent would be sold at commercial rate to the state power utility, Tangedco,” said the university vice-chancellor, adding, around '1 crore of the  total cost of the project would be spent for connecting the power unit to the green corridor of Tangedco, located at Palayapettai, around four-km away from the university.

An area of five acres has been earmarked within the university campus at Abishegapatti in Tirunelveli for the installation of 3,125 photovoltaic panels at the cost of Rs 4 crore.

The project construction to start on Wednesday is expected to be commissioned in the next three to five months and the project cost could be recovered within eight years by way of selling the 20 percent of power generated to Tangedco.  
Moreover, once it  started supplying power, the university could save around 'eight lakh per month, now being spent on power bills, added the vice-chancellor.