Largest Solar Concentrator: Boon for India's Healthcare Sector

With an experience of over 35 years in the solar sector, Chairman and MD of Sunrise CSP India, Deepak Gadhia, is a manufacturer of Scheffler concentrators, steam cooking systems and parabolic cookers. He is also credited with engineering and helping create large arrays of Scheffler concentrators for institutions, one of which at Tirupati, solar cooks 30,000 meals daily. A trustee of the Muni Seva Ashram, Mr Gadhia, who overlooks its sustainability aspects, speaks to Sapna Gopal about the biggest solar concentrator that was installed at the hospital in the ashram premises, in April this year.

- Sapna Gopal

The Kailash Cancer Hospital and Research Centre at Muni Seva Ashram in Goraj village, Vadodara district, Gujarat, has installed a solar concentrator, claimed to be the biggest globally. What was the thought behind this?

The Muni Seva Ashram had a 100 TR solar thermal air-conditioning plant running on 100 Scheffler Concentrator of 12.5 m2 each. This system had been operational since 2007 and had successfully proved that a 100 TR Solar VAM Chiller can run with solar generated steam. However, the 100 Scheffler Concentrator System required and occupied a lot of space— approximately 2500 square metres, which in 2007 when installed, was not a constraint. Since then, the hospital has grown from being a 160 bed to a 400 bed hospital and the Muni Seva Ashram has expanded as well. Thus, the Ashram was looking for a technology that could occupy lesser space to generate the same quantity of steam and this is where the BIGDISH Concentrator fitted perfectly. It occupies one-third of area/ footprint, which means it needed only 25 metre x 25 metre footprint, that is, 625 square metres.

When was this project envisaged and how much time did it take to complete?