Tripura shifting to solar energy to meet future power needs: Minister

Tripura Power Minister Ratan Lal Nath announced on Saturday that the state is making a decisive shift towards solar energy to meet future electricity demands as natural gas reserves continue to deplete.

Nath, while attending an awareness camp on the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana at Kailashahar in Unakoti District, said that in the last seven years, since 2018, the Power Department has installed several small solar power plants with a generation capacity of 29 MW of power.

The Minister said that the government has decided that all government offices would be covered under solar power.

He informed that before 2018, there were 7.21 lakh electricity consumers, and now the number has increased to 10.38 lakh.

The Minister informed that the state power department is working to revive the Dumbur hydel power plant in Gomati district to generate 11 MW of power.

The Dumbur hydel power project was commissioned in 1976 with an initial generation capacity of 10 MW, but in recent years, the project’s generation capacity has reduced to 2 to 3 MW.

In last year’s devastating flood, the project was badly damaged and its generation capacity was stopped.

An expert team of National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) Ltd carried out a study for the revival of the Dumbur hydroelectric project in Tripura’s Gomati district.

The Minister said that people may belong to various political parties, but development must be for everyone.

The Minister said that the PM Surya Ghar Scheme started on 13 February 2024. Noting that power is mostly generated from gas, air, water, and the sun, Nath said that in Tripura, power is generated from natural gas.

Claiming that the gas is slowly decreasing and will finish someday, he said that due to the shortage of gas, Rukhia, Palatana, Ramchandra Nagar, and Monarchak gas-based projects are all generating less power.

“We have to prepare for the future, and that is why the state and central government are working on solar power. Under the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, solar plates can be installed on rooftops, plain land, and almost everywhere. With the installation of solar power, bills are reduced, and anyone can also earn money by installing small solar power plants at their own premises and lands,” said the Minister.

He said that the Tripura State Electricity Corporation has been conducting awareness camps across the state to avail the scope of PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana.

“Everyone must install it. I want to say that this is a huge scheme. We have 10 lakh consumers, and we have set a target to install solar panels in 50,000 households so that we can generate 150 MW power from solar energy,” the minister said.

Congress MLA and former Minister Birajit Sinha, TSECL Managing Director Biswajit Basu and many others were present at the event.