AGARTALA, October 13 (TIWN): A workshop cum business meet on Concentrating Solar Technologies (CST) for community cooking and process heat applications was jointly organized by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) government of India under UNDP-GEF concentrated solar heat project and Tripura Renewable Energy Department Agency (TREDA) department of science, technology and environment at Pragna Bhawan here today.

While speaking in the workshop minister for Science, Technology and Environment Bijita Nath said that concentrating solar technology (CSTs) can help reducing the fuel oil/electricity during day time by way of integrating them with their existing units. Its a device which can concentrate solar radiation using mirrors/lenses to produce high temperatures in the range of 100 to 450 C or more even.  These devices, however, need automatic tracking so as to focus Sun rays on to a receiver all the time. They can also tap only direct normal radiation and not the diffuse. Solar water/air heaters are already in promotion at commercial level but these are limited to temperatures below 90C.They also require larger space for desired heat delivery, but have advantage of collecting both diffuse & direct radiation. Use of CSTs at places of direct utility make them viable subject to availability of good DNI. Concentrating solar systems have been found to be quite suitable for cooking food for hundreds and thousands of people in community kitchens especially at religious places and institutional/industrial canteens, the minister added.

Concentrating solar technology (CSTs) basically focus the sunlight at receiver to achieve higher temperatures for various applications. Since these technologies can focus the direct radiation coming from the sun, they need to be tracked along with the sun. The technologies can be based on single axis (E-W) tracking as well as dual axis (E-W& N-S) tracking depending on their tracking arrangement they can put in the category of medium or high temperature applications, said national project manager, UNDP-GEF project, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) government of India Dr. A.K. Singhal.

He further said that for promotion of these systems, support upto 30% of the cost of solar field subject to certain benchmarks is available under off-grid scheme of JNNSM . Higher support of 60% is available in special category states. The systems are being installed through State Nodal Agencies/ accredited private channel partners as per technical specifications laid down by MNRE. The main objective of UNDP-GEF Project on CSTs is to reduce GHG emissions from low & medium temperature process heat applications through increased use of CSTs, he added.