APEPDCL briefs on best energy practices to Haryana team

Visakhapatnam: A four-member team of Haryana, HAREDA and Discom led by PK Mahapatra, Additional Chief Secretary, New and Renewable Energy Department of Haryana along with other officers of P K Das, Additional Chief Secretary, Power, Jagjit Singh Kohli, Technical Expert, HAREDA, P K Nautiyal, Scientific Engineer ‘A’ HAREDA has visited APEPDCL on Friday to study the best practices adopted by APEPDCL on Grid connected solar water pumping system.  

Welcoming the team, APEPDCL Chairman and Managing Director H Y Dora presented a power point presentation and explained them how the APEPDCL has implemented scheme of grid connected solar agricultural pump sets with advanced technology.

The CMD led the team to the pilot project site at Savaravilli and Koulavada villages of Vizianagaram district and explained that it is the first of its kind in India, a pilot project was started with 216 grid connected BLDC solar pump sets at Savaravilli feeder area of Vizianagaram district.  Solar pump sets of 5 hp and 3 hp were supplied to farmers with given free maintenance up to five years.

The grid connected solar pump sets would enable farmers to utilise the generated electricity for irrigation and allows any excess energy generated by solar power to be exported to utility grid and thereby to receive considerable revenue by selling the power to grid, the CMD explained.

“The APEPDCL already replaced the existing conventional pump sets with BLDC motors with free of cost. The DISCOM arranged meters for recording how much energy produced, utilised and how much excess energy export to the grid through solar power.

The farmers will be receiving some income by selling the excess generated solar power by connecting to the grid. As this project is completed with successes, soon the DISCOM is going to adopt grid connected solar water pump sets of 10,000 with a capacity of 7 HP to 10 HP in East and West Godavari districts.

The visiting team was fully satisfied after interacting with the farmers who adopted this system,” Dora explained. APEPDCL Director B Seshu Kumar and Chief General Manager G Sarat Kumar and senior officials of EPDCL were present.