Dhundhi Village

Dhundhi village

By

Sagar Jethwani – 17TMPA032

&

Devang Goswami

– 17TMPA026

On 16/08/2017, we the students of ELE-AIIE visited Dhundhi, a village in Thasra taluka in Kheda district, under the guidance of Mr. Pravinbhai Parmar and our professors, Mr. Herik and Mr. Krunal, to see their initiative of solar power irrigation system and solar power supply to the main grid. Let’s have an overlook.[pic 1]

Dhundhi farmers with the help of IWMI(International water management Institute) have established a network of solar power pumps and power supply on 10/05/2016. The speciality here is not the solar pumps but the system by which the farmers can get earnings by selling the extra solar power produced to the local power producing company MGVCL(Madhya Gujarat Vij Company Limited). The farmers established India’s first solar co-operative society named “Dhundhi Saur Urja Utpadhak Sahkari Mandali” in Kheda.[pic 2]

In the total of initial six farmers(now 9), they have three types of panels, motors and pumps. The first plant, the oldest one, have 10.8kw panels which produce approximately 70 units power/day and which runs 7.5 hp motor. It has 36 panels with 300 watts capacity per panel. The second one have 32 panels with 250 watts capacity per panel totalling 8 kw and running a 5hp motor. It produce 56-60 units power/day. The latest one which is just 6 months old, have 17 panels with 305 watts per panel capacity totalling 5kw and can run a 5hp motor. It produce 45 units power/day[pic 3]

All the pumps were supplied by “Kiloskar company”, motors supplied by “Phalcon” and solar panels supplied by “Goldi-Green” which have a headquarter in Anand and main headquarter in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A control room was established at the centre of the village where the power meters of all the farmers were connected with the main line and the electricity was directed to the MGVCL feeders from there. The project was completely built by “Shaaswat” company and funded by TCS.

For this great initiative, they also received certificate from our Ex Chief minister of Gujarat, Shri Anandiben Patel. The rate of payment for the electricity was decided Rs.4.63/unit by MGVCL but IWMI provided extra Rs.2.5/unit as water conservation and green energy bonus to the farmers. In total they get Rs.7.13/unit and together annually getting an income of nearly Rs. 2-2.5 lakhs. Their first check of Rs.36,005 by the sale of 5,097units(kWh) was provided from MGVCL, IWMI and CCAFS(Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security).[pic 4][pic 5][pic 6]