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To reduce carbon footprint, the ministry of shipping through its arm Directorate General of Lighthouse and Lightships (DGLL) plans to achieve complete solarisation of lighthouses by 31 December 2016, a government release said on Friday.
At present there are 193 lighthouses in India out of which DGLL has already solarised 176. Lighthouses are used by ships for navigational aid.
On 2 October, India ratified the Paris climate change deal which is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change dealing with rising temperature, among other environmental concerns.
“In order to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) emission, DGLL has decided to replace the source of energy utilised at lighthouses to renewable source and started harnessing solar energy to operate its lighthouses,” the statement issued by the ministry of shipping noted.
Post complete solarisation, approximately 1.5 megawatt-hour (MWh) energy will be generated which will amount to reduction of approximately 6,000kg of greenhouse gases per day, according to the release.
These lighthouses earlier operated on conventional sources of energy such as electricity and diesel generators which consumed fossil fuel. Generation of 1MWh power through fossil fuel leads to emission of approximately 900kg of CO2.
The ministry has also been pushing for the use solar panels on boats and ferries which traditionally use diesel generators as source of power, but that affects the ecological balance of marine life.
“This is a great initiative on the part of the government and an excellent idea. Fortunately, we are blessed with solar energy in abundance and it comes at zero cost. So, even if the scale of the impact is a fraction of what is being claimed, it will definitely have a very positive cumulative impact considering there are 193 lighthouses and more than 200 major and minor ports in the country,” said Nawneet Vibhaw, managing associate at Luthra and Luthra Law Offices and a part of the firm’s environment and policy practice.
Another government transporter-the Indian Railways-as per the announcement of the rail budget for the current financial year, also aims to base 10% of its electricity demand on green energy by 2020 and commission 1,000MW of solar power capacity in the next five years.
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