Goregaon temple turns its wet waste into electricity

One of the biggest temple trusts in Mumbai has set up a hybrid system, a combination of biogas plant coupled with solar panels, to not only produce electricity from wet waste generated in its premises but also with a target to gradually shift to renewable energy for power.

Last week, the Ayappa Seva Samgham temple at Goregaon, Bangur Nagar, which generates up to 500 kilograms of wet waste including all the floral offerings, set up solar panels and converted its existing biogas plant to produce electricity. In fact, in the coming months, it is also planning to set up a waste water treatment plant to ensure that all the waste water generated from its temple premises can be reused.

“We had the biogas plant setup and the gas produced was used for small purposes but we decided to better the system thus not only a setup was added to convert the gas into electricity but solar panels too were added and the electricity which will be generated will now help us light up a small community hall,” said Retired Colonel Chandrashekhar Unni, Joint Secretary of the temple trust.

Currently the set up is at a pilot level hence only two solar panels have been added. “Our final aim is to ensure that we can power the entire premises using renewable energy by next year. Every month we want to increase the output of both solar as well as biogas plant,” Unni said, and added that they even plan to approach nearby temples to collect their wet waste and use it for the biogas plant.

Harish Mistry, a resident of Malad who has helped the temple trust by providing the biogas plant and setting up solar panels, said that this would soon become a model temple for visitors to understand renewable energy and its generation. “We have set up a system where all the wet waste is put into the biogas digestor and the anaerobic composting releases methane gas which is converted into electricity with fuel cells. To improve the capacity we have added solar panels and the electricity generated will be stored in batteries or invertor,” he said.