Diu, remotely placed in western India, apart from its pristine coastline, colourful houses, tiny cafes, markets, solitary beaches, is now going to add one more feather to its cap of fame – being India’s first and the only Union Territory to run entirely on solar energy.
Despite a limited land of just 42 square kilometres, the solar power plants at Diu have been occupied more than 50 acres of its area. In fact the Union territory has modelled itself showing a quick progress in solar power generation, just within three years.
Earlier for electricity consumtion, Diu has to depend on the neighbouring state, Gujarat. But now with the installation of new solar plants it can easily generate a total of 13 megawatts of electricity per day. Out of which 3 MW is generated by the rooftop solar plants and 10 MW by others.
As explained by the Executive Engineer of Daman and Diu electricity department – Milind Ingle, “Diu’s maximum electricity consumption goes up to 7 MW and we generate about 10.5 MW of electricity from the solar energy daily. This is quite more than the requirement.”
He added that with a 12% of cut down in the monthly electricity bill, this solar power has come as a big relief for local residents here at Diu. Before it, the electricity charge for 0-50 units was Re 1.20 per unit and 50-100 units was Re 1.50 per unit. But after the introduction of solar power plants, it has got a new revised format of 1-100 units charging Re 1.01 per unit and the 0-50 slab is removed completely.
