Andhra Pradesh is planning to use electrical vehicles in a big way, and 1,500 of them will be run on the roads in Amaravati, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam, Energy Department Adviser K. Ranganatham said here on Friday.
He said the State government had submitted indent for these vehicles with Energy Efficiency Services Limited (ESSL). These energy efficient vehicles would save fuel and be environmentally sustainable.
He was speaking at the ‘Solar and Renewables Exhibition’, jointly organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of AP (NREDCAP), State Bank of India (SBI), NABARD, AP Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC), Greenko and Koneru Lakshmaiah University (KLU) here on Friday.
“Electric vehicles would be given to government departments and 500 four-wheelers would be given to the three cities each in the first phase. The energy efficient vehicles would enter into the market once Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the electric vehicle programme in December this year,” Mr. Ranganatham said.
Renewable resources
Addressing bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, exhibitors and the stakeholders at the one-day expo, he said energy is the integral part of urbanisation, industrialisation and economic growth and to meet the growing demand for energy, renewable energy is the best.
“This is the time to work towards developing cheaper renewable technologies and Andhra Pradesh is blessed with good renewable energy potential. According to National Institute of Solar Energy, we have potential for generating 38,500 Mega Watts (MWs) solar power and 44,229 MWs of wind power. So far, we have harnessed 2,121 MWs of solar and 3,770 MWs of wind power”, the adviser said.
Solar pumpsets
NREDCAP Officer on Special Duty (OSD) K. Srinivas said Andhra Pradesh had the highest consumption of electricity in the agriculture sector at around 21% of the total usage in the State. The corporation had commissioned 17,759 solar pumpsets and 36 MWs of rooftop solar systems so far. NREDCAP is planning to set up solar parks at mandal and village-level in all districts, the OSD said.
Earlier, the guests went round the expo organised by NREDCAP, SBI and various solar and wind power companies. Lead convener-HR and CSR Panel CII, AP, VVM Krishna, GreenKo Group COO Vinay Kumar, SBU DGM Vinay Kumar, NREDCAP manager Srinivas and resource persons from different organisations participated.
