Shirdi Sai temple gets excellence award for solar kitchen

SHIRDI/NASHIK: The Sai Prasadalaya, a community kitchen of Shri Saibaba Sansthan Shirdi has bagged the coveted Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) and Solar Cooker Excellence Awards- 2016 by the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE).
Shirdi Sai temple, which draws thousands of devotees every day, has one of world’s largest Solar System Projects for community cooking installed in 2014.With 73 solar dishes each of 16 sq meter size, the total steam generation capacity of this project is 4200 kg/day. Food is cooked for more than 25000 individuals every day in the Kitchen. More than 2 tonnes of rice is cooked through this plant every day, saving cooking gas of up to Rs 20,000. Till date, the plant has saved Rs 60 lakh for the trust.
“It was a proud moment to receive the award of excellence for the solar thermal cooking system project. Sri Sai Baba Sansthan is saving 1 lakh kg of LPG, estimated to cost Rs 20,00,000 every year through this project,” said Bajirao Shinde, CEO of the temple who received the award in New Delhi at the hands of Piyush Goyal, minister of state for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy. Apart from Shirdi Trust, 102 institutions, companies and agencies from across the country were felicitated for their achievement in high-temperature solar process heat and cooking.
Goyal also released nine knowledge documents collated by several experts to provide information on Concentrated Solar Thermal Technology (CST) on the occasion. Appreciating Shirdi Temple’s project, the minister said that such individual projects have a vital role to play in achieving holistic solar targets.
The ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) is implementing the programme on Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) technology under the ‘Off-grid and Decentralized Solar Applications’ programme of the National Solar Mission. While community cooking has become a popular application in both educational and religious organizations, CST technologies are being adopted to meet the process heat requirements in dairying, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles and many other industrial sectors.