By H Sushila
IMPHAL, June 3: Scarcity of electricity is one of the worst problems faced by the people of the state.
With power supply limited to just about two hours daily, there is a need for alternative source of power supply.
Various methods including wind mill, hydro-electric power, heavy fuel engines etc. have been tried to supplement the scarcity of power in the state, however without much success.
Though the Hydro-electric power system has been successful to an extent, it has however failed to meet the increasing demands of the consumers.
To minimise the problems of inadequate power supply faced in the state Electrical and Engineering Industry of Khurai Salanthong Chaithabi Leirak has come up with a solar inverter “Eta Thangmei”.
‘Eta Thangmei’ uses the energy of the sun and converts it in the form of power.
Interacting with IFP 63 year old Huidrom Iboyaima alias Prem, the brain behind the concept and proprietor of Electrical and Engineering Industry said ‘Eta Thangmei’ will somewhat help minimise the power problem in the state.
Iboyaima said he started making electrical inverters in the year 1982.
He had done a correspondence course of 2 years in Radio engineering from the British Institute of Engineering Technology, Mumbai.
He said he drew his inspiration and idea to produce electrical inverter from an electrical magazine; he came across during his 2 years course at BIET.
During that time, inverter was already invented and being successfully used in German and other European countries. However, Manipur had little knowledge about it.
He further said it was very difficult to spread awareness of the electrical inverter among the people of the state in the initial years.
In order to draw the attention of the general public, he provided a 15 days free demonstration on the product to the people that captured the attention of the public and his business took off, he added.
After the electrical inverter, Huidrom Iboyaima started manufacturing solar products in the state from the month of June 2011.
He further continued that to transform the electrical inverter into solar inverter, a device known as Solar Hybrid Adapter which is easily available in the market is needed.
The Solar Hybrid Adapter which is available for a reasonable price last for several years.
For this particular solar inverter, LED bulbs are more preferable since it consumes lesser amount of power.
According to the needs of the customer, there are different inverters with different power capacity. One could have inverters with 3 hours, 5 hours and 8 hours capacity per day.
Besides the solar inverter his products include solar lamp, home lighting system and a new facility for mobile charging.
Comparing the price of the products with other standard companies, the products of the industry is about 30 percent cheaper and compatible with 80 percent of the other standard companies.
All its products have a one year warranty with after sales service and have been produced using state of the art technology.
There have been very few complaints with his products, he added.
Iboyaima further expressed the need for a mass awareness on the usefulness of the solar energy and its products.