Solar Power Tree

Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, recently launched the ‘Solar Power Tree’.

Who developed it?

It has been developed by the CSIR-Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-CMERI), a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

What’s good about this?

Solar Power Tree innovatively addresses the challenge of increasing demand for Green Energy by gainfully utilizing scarce land resources in the country.

• The Solar Power Tree harnesses solar energy for producing electricity with an innovative vertical arrangement of solar cells. It thus reduces the requirement of land as compared to conventional Solar Photovoltaic layout, on one hand, while keeping the land character intact on the other.
• Even the cultivable land can be utilized for solar energy harnessing along with farming at the same time. The innovation finds its viability both in rural and urban areas.

The Salient Features of the Solar Power Tree are:

• It takes only 4 square feet of land for a 5 KW Solar Power tree, whereas in a conventional layout, it requires 400 square feet of land.
• By holding the photovoltaic panels at a higher height, on an average it gets more sunrays for one hour in a day. As a result, it is possible to harness 10-15% more power in comparison to a conventional layout on ground.
• It has a battery back-up of 2 hours on full load, hence giving light even after sunset.
• It is facilitated with water sprinkler at the top for self-cleaning of panels, that increases the efficiency of the solar panels.
• The estimated cost of the device is around Rs. 5 Lakh for a 5 KW specification.

Way ahead:

The device has been functioning effectively at three places in West Bengal as a pilot project. As a future prospect, the Solar Power Tree would be developed in a rotatable module, which would have a motorized mechanism to align itself with the movement of the Sun during the day. Hence, it would be possible to harness 10-15% more power over and above the current capacity.