A project to provide electricity to 25,000 low-income households through solar panels is going to start
A project to provide electricity to 25,000 low-income households through solar panels is going to start. Urban Development and Housing Minister Mr. Prasanna Ranatunga states that it is expected to add 500 megawatts of renewable energy to the national grid.
The related cabinet document was also approved recently. For this, 25,000 houses are selected out of 69,000 houses that have been stopped during construction due to various reasons. 20 kilowatts of electricity will be generated by the solar panels installed on the roof of the houses. The Minister said that in addition to the use of the electricity in the houses, it will also be added to the national electricity system.
Many housing projects launched by the National Housing Development Authority on the basis of assistance to low-income families since 2017 have stopped on the way due to various reasons. Accordingly, this project will be implemented for selected housing schemes started as villages on government lands in the 11 districts of Monaragala, Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura, Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Jaffna.
The minister also said that the project will be implemented jointly with a foreign company and the maintenance of the solar panels will be carried out by the investor for 20 years. Also, for the first 7 years of this project, an amount of 0.116 USD will be paid to the investor for an electricity unit.
For the remaining 13 years, US$ 0.0816 per unit of electricity will be paid. This solar panel electricity project will generate 648 gigawatts of electricity per year. Therefore, 116.64 million US dollars will be saved from the annual cost of importing fuel to this country.
Minister Prasanna Ranatunga also said that this project will save the country 2,332.80 million US dollars in foreign exchange value during the twenty-year period.
No Comments