India designs world's largest Solar Tree that generates 14000 units of power

Well can one imagine a tree in your agriculture field that would generate electricity worth Rs 60,000 to 70,000 a year, prevent Co2 emission to the tune of 10-12 tons and would not affect your agriculture yield as its little shadow would hardly impact crops growing under the tree.

See the World’s Largest Solar tree with an installed capacity of 11.5 KWatts that would cost nearly Rs 7.5 lakhs and can generate 12,000-14,000 units of Clean and Green Power. The tree is designed developed by the Indian scientists of CSIR-CMERI (CSIR, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research & Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute)

According to Director Harish Hirani of CMERI, the Solar Tree has been designed in a manner to ensure maximum exposure of each Solar PV Panel to Sunlight and also the creation of the least amount of shadow area beneath. There are a total of 35 Solar PV Panels in each tree with a capacity of 330 Watts each. The inclination of the arms holding the Solar PV Panels are flexible and can be adjusted as per requirement, this feature is not available in Roof-Mounted Solar facilities. The energy generation data can be monitored either real-time or on a daily basis.

Besides being the largest solar tree in the world, it can also be customized for application at various sites as per requirement. Professor Hirani said, “The CSIR-CMERI developed Solar Tree besides being the World’s Largest Solar Tree also has certain customizable features for application at diverse sites. The Solar Trees were designed in a manner to ensure minimum Shadow Area, thus potentially making these Solar Trees available for widespread usage in Agricultural activities such as High Capacity Pumps, e-Tractors and e-Power Tillers”.

The best part of these trees is that it can be aligned with Agriculture for substituting price-volatile fossil fuels. Each Solar Tree has the potential to save 10-12 tons of CO₂ emissions being released into the atmosphere as Greenhouse Gases when compared with fossil fuel-fired energy generation. Besides, the surplus generated power can be fed into an Energy Grid.

“This Agricultural Model can provide a consistent economic return and help the farmers counter the effects of the uncertain variations in Agriculture related activities, thus, making farming an Economic and Energy Sustainable practice,” the Director said. Each Solar Tree will cost Rs 7.5 lakhs and the interested MSMEs can align their Business Model with the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha even Utthan Mahabhiyan (PM KUSUM) Scheme for farmers, for developing a Renewable Energy based Energy Grid, he said.

 

He further said that the solar tree has the capability to incorporate IOT based features mainly round-the-clock CCTV surveillance in agricultural fields, real-time humidity, wind speed, rainfall prediction and soil analytics sensors.  The CSIR-CMERI developed solar powered e-Suvidha Kiosks may also be connected to the Solar Trees for real-time access to the vast majority of the agricultural database as well as to the eNAM i.e. National Agricultural MarketPlace for instant and real-time access to a unified online market.

This Solar Tree is a Quantum Leap towards making an Energy Reliant and Carbon Negative India.

 

About CSIR-CMERI

The Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI) is the apex Research and Development Institute for mechanical engineering under the aegis of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). It is based at Durgapur, West Bengal and was asked to develop indigenous mechanical engineering technology.

Being the only national-level research institute in this field, CMERI’s mandate is to serve the industry and develop mechanical engineering technology so that India’s dependence on foreign collaboration is substantially reduced in strategic and economy sectors. Besides, the institute is facilitating innovations and inventions for establishing the claims of Indian talent in international fields where Indian products shall ultimately compete.

In the new millennium, CMERI is poised to expand its the horizon of research activities so as to steer the country forward in cutting-edge and sunrise fields.

 

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