Haryana’s First Solar Petrol Pump: Royal Indian Filling Station, Sanoli, Panipat

1. What Dainik Tribune printed

By Kunwer Sachdev (Founder & Managing Director, 1988–2018)

On 3 June 2015 the Panipat edition of Dainik Tribune ran the headline: the first solar petrol pump had started in Panipat. The station named is Royal Indian Filling Station, near Sanoli village. The paper called it the state’s first filling station running fully on solar.

The operator named is Sanjeev Chaudhary. He told the paper that, with government support and Su-Kam, they had converted the pump to a 10 kVA solar unit, and that it was running entirely on solar. The cutting prints a claimed electricity-bill saving of ₹50,000 to ₹60,000 a month, and an estimate of about ten months. Kanav Sachdeva, then Su-Kam’s brand manager, is quoted: the pump runs seven days, twenty-four hours, and the company had taken up a mission to put smart backup on petrol pumps across the country. I was MD. The 10 kVA line and that mission sat on my desk. This page does not claim I was at Sanoli with the reporter.

The same engineering problem

A 10 kVA sticker does not tell you whether a dispenser will start. The jerk current is high, and it is different on every pump. That is why the first petrol-pump jobs were hard, in Andhra Pradesh in 2013 and still in Haryana in 2015. The box had to take that surge without dropping the rest of the forecourt.

We were the first company to solarize petrol pumps in various parts of India. After we proved it, every company copied the technology and started selling. Panipat in 2015 was one more state first. The copycats came later.

2. Ground record from the 3 June 2015 cutting

3. Hub

• Episode 4 — AP 2013 (Kodad / Shadnagar)
• Episode 5 — Jalgaon 10 kVA and the starting-current problem
• 2009 recovered archive
• Facebook Archive

Historical Documentation Notice:
This article documents a historical installation from the tenure of Kunwer Sachdev as Founder & Managing Director of Su-Kam Power Systems Ltd. (1988–2018). He exited in 2019 under the IBC process and holds no association with Su-Kam or its subsequent management. Site names, 10 kVA, and rupee figures are taken from the 3 June 2015 Dainik Tribune cutting.