Imphal, July 1: The Manipur Renewable Energy Development Agency (Manireda) today launched a solar thermal system in the state with a daylong workshop to make people aware of its benefits to the environment and users.

The scheme, taken up under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Energy Mission, will provide at least 10,000 solar heaters in all the nine districts of the state during the next five years.

“This will reduce the burden on energy and help to maintain the environment,” the agency’s director L. Manglem Singh told reporters here today.

Manipur has an acute power shortage with the state power department supplying only 80MW against a demand of 170MW during peak hours.

The heater, having a capacity of 100 litre per day, will cost around 25,000 each, 75 per cent of which will be provided by central and state subsidy.

The workshop was organised jointly by Manireda, a state nodal agency under the department of science and technology, and a Bangalore-based company Nuetech Solar System.

The chief executive officer of Nuetech Solar System, T. Anant, explained the benefits of the system, especially to the environment.

He said installing a solar heater was worth planting many trees and would contribute in the fight against global warming.

The system evinced much interest among the participants, most of them government officials and representatives of NGOs.

An official of the agency said the scheme received a good response from the participants at the workshop with many of them applying for it.

The Manipur agency had recently installed solar heater systems in 25 houses and offices as a demonstration before the launch today.

It also fitted solar lighting system in 200 villages and wind-solar hybrid energy system in another 10 villages in the hill districts where electricity does not reach.

Health and family welfare minister L. Jayenta Singh said the government had plans to install a 25kW solar energy system in the government hospitals in the district headquarters, including the one at Moreh, Manipur’s border town.

Officials here said solar heaters were not installed in the Northeast extensively. Manipur would be one of the first states to do so.

“After the first phase, we are planning to install more systems depending upon the success in the first phase,” an official of the agency said.