Surat has witnessed increase in renewable energy production capacity by 30 per cent in the past 18 months. The share of wind and solar is around 90 per cent Of the 25 crore units of electricity that the city produces. Surat happens to be the only city in the country whose captive power generation meets 33 per cent of demand of consumers, with wind and solar power plants playing a significant role in this, government sources claimed.
Surat Municipal Corporation’s (SMC) annual energy demand is 250 gigawatt hours (GWH). At present, SMC produces 78.4 GWH of wind energy. This saves SMC Rs47.2 crore per annum on electricity bills, it also helps reduce emission of 64,000 tonne per annum of carbon dioxide (CO2). SMC has set up 6 megawatts (MW) solar power plants in last three years and they generate 8.3 GWH of energy, saving it another Rs5.2 crore annually on electricity bills and also reducing CO2 emission by 7,000 tonnes per year.
SMC has plans to increase solar power generation from 6MW to 10MW and wind power production from 32.4MW to 38.7MW in another three years. Its thrust is on rooftop solar plant installation in the city. Till now, nearly 6,000 rooftops have been covered in last 18 months. The local body plans to have 15,000 rooftop solar plant installation by 2021-22 with installed capacity of 100MW.