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Renewable energy has been CSR's first field of
research and development and India's Ministry for Non-conventional
Energy Sources (MNES) has been its main sponsor in this domain.
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CSR developed and produces maintenance-free ferrocement
biogas plants of two types: floating drum and fixed dome.
R&D was financed by MNES.
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CSR developed India's best performing wind-pumps
(5.5 m diameter wheel, 25 m high tower). CSR's wind pumps are
manufactured and marketed by "Aureka", a sister unit under
the Auroville Foundation. R&D was financed by MNES.
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CSR built a 15 metre diameter fixed
spherical solar concentrator for Auroville's "Solar
Kitchen". The solar concentrator has been designed to produce
sufficient steam for 1,000 lunches and 1,000 dinners on clear days.
The system is fully automatic and hybridized in order to produce
steam regardless of the cloud cover. MNES was the main sponsor.
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CSR manufactures under license from Wolfgang
Scheffler, Austria, the "Scheffler Solar Concentrators"
for community cooking.
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CSR installed a 37 kW solar photovoltaic
power plant, the biggest stand-alone system in India, close to
the Matrimandir. It has also installed more than 200 solar
photovoltaic water pumps of at least 1kW each in Auroville and
surrounding region.
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CSR is presently manufacturing some of the
components of an 8-metre diameter solar parabolic concentrator to
be equipped with a 10 kW Stirling Engine. This system was
designed in Germany and will be installed at Vellore Engineering
College in Tamil Nadu.
In 1997, IREDA (Govt. of India) gave CSR the award
of India's "Best NGO in the Renewable Energy Sector in India".
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