Oct 27 2010
Span Pumps, a Pune city-based company, has announced the availability of solar-powered hand pumps. The solar pump can be used in villages to pull water from the wells without operating the pumps manually. The pumps are found to be useful in rural locations that do not have electric power or suffer from shortage of power.
The company has entered in to a rate agreement with the Maharashtra Energy Development Authority (MEDA), an administrative arm of the state government in implementing renewable energy resources. The proposed system will receive subsidy from the central government.
The solar pump provided by the company includes a pump and a solar array and can be used to draw water from bore wells. The 300 to 800 W solar array will be installed near the well and an electric pump is located underneath the hand pump cylinder. The pump functions utilizing the power generated from the PV solar cells. The installed submersible pump shares the same pipe line along with the hand pump. The new system does not incorporate a battery or an inverter and directly utilizes the generated solar energy from the arrays. The outlet of the pump is connected to a storage tank to store the pumped water. The pump can function for 7 to 8 hours a day when the sun energy is available and the same pump can be used with hand operations after the setting of the sun. The system incorporates a backup power facility for continuous supply of water. The initial investment for each installation will cost from Rs.2.5 to Rs.4.5 lakhs based on the required solar array and pump’s capacity. The installation will function for about 15 to 20 years with least investment on maintenance. The first installation of the pump was carried out at gram panchayat of Talegaon Dhamdhere in Pune district.
Nitiyan Mutiyan, Span Pumps Director, said that a major proportion of India’s rural population utilize bore wells fitted with hand pumps for drinking water purposes. The solar enabled submersible pumps will allow the communities to draw up to 20,000 liters of water effortlessly and the drawn water can be stored in the overhead tanks for use.
Source: http://www.spanpumpsindia.com/