KATHMANDU, Dec 9: The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has started cleaning the solar panels of the street lamps installed in the capital ahead of the 18th SAARC Summit.
Many of the street lights along the Tinkune-Maitighar road section had stopped working after the solar panels were covered with dust. This is the first time in a month that the NEA has started cleaning the solar panels after they were installed.
“We started cleaning the solar panels two days ago and we have already cleaned up as many as 90 solar panels,” said Mukesh Raj Kafle, managing director of NEA. “The solar panels were covered dust and had stopped functioning.”
According to Kafle, the NEA is also planning to buy three cranes to clean solar street lights on a regular basis. The NEA had installed 1,000 solar street lamps in the capital ahead of the SAARC summit.
NEA had been saying that it does not have hydraulic lifting machine for cleaning the solar panels. Only Ratnapark branch of NEA has one such machine.
On the other hand, Sanjaya Raj Upadhyay, chief of the Physical Planning and Construction Department of KMC, said they have been urging the NEA for regular maintenance of streets lamps. “We have even offered to help NEA for regular maintenance of the street lamps,” said Upadhyay. He said the solar panels were covered with dust preventing its batteries from charging.
KMC had also installed around 100 solar street lights from its internal resources along the Lainchaur-Maharajgunj road section. KMC has been regularly cleaning the panels.
Source : Republica
