Confronted with the problem of erratic supply of power particularly during the rainy season, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has installed solar panels and four windmills at
The dam commissioned in 2012 is run by the BMC. It was the first dam constructed by the civic body in the post-British era, and is named after Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.
It supplies nearly 450 million litres of water to Mumbai.
The dam gets electricity from Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, but the power supply is unpredictable particularly in the rainy season.
A senior engineer of BMC said, “Power is supplied to the dam from Igatpuri side, and the transmission lines pass through forests. During rains, the branches often fall on these transmission lines, snapping
The engineer said that power outages threaten the safety of the dam. “We need constant supply of power for operating the gates. If we don’t release water and can’t operate gates on time, the villages downstream face the risk of flooding if water overflows from above the gates in an uncontrolled way.”
He said the100 kilowatts of energy generated from these
This area experiences winds with speeds up to 2.4 metres per second and temperature up to 45 degrees Celsius. These factors made the BMC go in for the renewable sources of energy at the spot. Forty kilowatts would be generated from the wind mills and 60 kilowatts from the solar panels. The project cost the BMC Rs 2.71 crore.
An employee of water works department said, “The power cuts in monsoon are very frequent, and we use torches to move around as lights in our complex do not work. At times, we have to use cellphone flashlights.’’
The project has been completed under the supervision of assistant engineer Sandip Kor and executive engineer R S Johare.
