Junagadh gets Gujarat’s first fully solar powered village

RAJKOT: Dark days have become a thing of past in this nondescript hamlet of Junagadh district.
Nana Kajaliyara, some 30 km from Jungadh town, has become the first village in the state to meet its entire power requirement through non-conventional and clean energy that is generated in its own backyard.
A 480 kilowatt (KW) solar plant set up by state-run Paschim Gujarat Vij Company Ltd (PGVCL) in Shapar, adjoining the village, is providing uninterrupted power supply to all 196 households.
Nana Kajaliyara was selected as a pilot project by the state government wherein entire village’s power demand is met with non-conventional energy.
“There are two advantages of this project. The transmission losses caused in bringing power to villages from faraway generating stations through grid will reduce as generation and distribution is done locally. Also, in the time of natural calamity, the village will continue to get supply due to vicinity of the plant,’’ said Sandip Kumar, managing director, PGVCL.
The solar plant generates around 7.5 lakh units per year while the consumption is around 1.5 lakh units. Some of the remaining 6.5 lakh is supplied to Shapar village.
Moreover, in monsoon where there is no sunlight or night, villagers won’t face any outages as the underutilized generation will be supplied to the grid as virtual storage. While the demand in Nana Kajaliyara is 100 KW per day, the rest of the power generated is stored in the grid.