Nestled in the foothills of the Aravallis in Rajasthan is a solar power plant which not only caters to the power needs of a township of 10,000 people but also generates power enough to cook over 35,000 meals a day.
With a total capacity of one Mega Watt, India One is the biggest project which works on Concentrated Solar Thermal Power technology, say officials at the plant.
Spread over an area of 25 acre are 770 parabolic reflective dishes, each one with an area of 60 sq meters, which roughly equals to an average 2 BHK house, and produces an output of 1 MW generated purely from water and steam.
India One is a research project of World Renewal Spiritual Trust (WRST), a registered charitable trust/solar research centre and a sister organisation of the NGO Brahma Kumaris.
The project is sponsored by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Sources (MNRE) in collaboration with the German government.
India One team consists of about 50 engineers and project support staff which include Golo Pilz, Head of Project, a German settled at Abu Road, and Jayasimha Rathod, the CEO.
While small-scale projects to harness solar energy had started at the Brahma Kumaris centre in Mount Abu and later at its Abu Road based headquarters in the early 1990s, the current project picked pace in 2010.
