CMERI Installs World’s Largest Solar Tree at Durgapur

CMERI, Durgapur has revealed a massive new solar tree structure at its residential colony, which it claims to be the world’s largest solar tree.

The Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), Durgapur has revealed a massive new solar tree structure at its residential colony, which it claims to be the world’s largest solar tree.

The solar tree has been designed in a manner to ensure maximum exposure of each solar photovoltaic (PV) panel to sunlight and also creation of the least amount of shadow area beneath, an institute spokesman said.

“The installed capacity of the solar tree is above 11.5 kWp (kilowatts peak) on a daily basis. It has the annual capacity to generate 12,000-14,000 units of clean and green power”, said Professor Harish Hirani, the Director of CMERI, which functions under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). “The power production, as well as number of PV panels in the solar tree developed by us, is the largest in the world,” he added.

According to the institute, the world’s largest solar tree was believed to be in Europe till now, which produces roughly 8.6 kWp of energy, considerably lower than the tree at the residential colony.

“The inclination of the arms holding the 35 solar PV panels are flexible and can be adjusted as per requirement and this feature is not available in roof-mounted solar facilities,” Hirani said. The director explained that the CSIR-CMERI developed solar tree has certain features that can be customised for application at diverse sites.

He explained that these solar trees can be used in agriculture for substituting price-volatile fossil fuels. “Each solar tree has the potential to save 10-12 tonnes of CO2 emission being released into the atmosphere as Greenhouse gases when compared with fossil fuel-fired energy generation. Besides, the surplus generated power can be fed into an energy grid.”

Each solar tree will cost Rs 7.5 lakh and the institute has invited interested MSMEs to align their business model with the PM-KUSUM scheme for farmers, for developing a renewable energy-based grid using these structures. The solar tree has the capability to incorporate IOT based features, like round-the-clock CCTV surveillance in agricultural fields, recording real-time humidity, wind speed, rainfall prediction.