Mumbai: BMC ties up with Tata to shift to green energy for water pumping

BMC’s water pumping stations together consume over 50 megawatts daily. Representation pic

TATA Power will help the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to avail maximum green electricity to run its water pumping stations and save on its power consumption bills. BMC's water pumping stations together will shift a demand of over 50 megawatts daily, a quantity of supply that is sufficient to cater to the population of a rural district.

The company has identified 50 water pumping stations with high-demand flexibility characteristics. These stations have been using electricity mostly generated by conventional sources, not renewables such as solar. A 23-day trial project at the Bhandup pumping station achieved a remarkable shift of 345 KW for three hours daily. It accumulated 23,000 units of electricity and resulted in a carbon offset of 21 tonnes. The success encouraged the collaboration further.

Tata Power has hired MP Ensystems Advisory Pvt Ltd as a study partner for the project. This collaborative initiative will not only allow BMC to access clean renewable power to deliver water to Mumbaikars, but also help the civic corporation to save on its power consumption bills using the time of day tariff (ToD), it said in a statement on Thursday. In ToD mechanism variations in pricing are available throughout the day and the consumers don't pay a fixed price regardless of the time of consumption.

TPC and BMC will scale up the program to cover most of the water pumping stations. The initiative is expected to shift a monthly demand of 50 MW and accumulate 1.8 million units and a carbon offset of 1620 tonnes annually. Tata Power said the success of the flexible demand program has underscored the company's commitment to delivering solutions for sustainable development with the use of the latest technologies and capability building over a long period.

23
No of days trial project was run at Bhandup