Bengaluru: Canadian International School (CIS), Yelahanka, has claimed that it has become a fully green school by running completely on solar power.
The solar plant installed at the school, with panels across all rooftops, produces 300 kilo watts of power per hour during peak hours (10 am – 4 pm), making it currently the largest solar power based production capacity in the state.
Shweta Sastri, Executive Director, CIS, believes that such an initiative would help their students identify the path to follow in future to keep up norms of sustainability.
“Walking the talk to pro actively train our students for the future is our primary aim behind such an initiative. The surplus energy produced during vacation will be redirected to the power grid set up by the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd (Bescom) which would then be supplied to households and villages surrounding the campus,” she said.
For the school’s 700 students, from kindergarten through Class 12, the solar plant has added on to their daily activities at school – observing and making a note of the amount of electricity produced live from solar energy every hour at each block at the campus.
“While some students are already scratching their brains to get a hang of how the system works, others are keen observers of the count displayed on each meter alongside the demo units,” Sastri said.
The school, which consumes a total of 4,30,000 kilo Watts (kW) of power annually, is now producing 5,00,000 kW electricity with a total of 1,875 solar panels mounted on rooftops of various blocks within the campus.
The surplus energy produced during the peak hours is redirected to the BESCOM grid (net metering) which distributes back sufficient power required for the boarding post school hours. Even though the total expenditure behind setting up the system has gone up to Rs 3 crore, the incentives from the state government helped them complete the dream project, the school administrators added.
“The solar plant is only one among our efforts to encourage the upcoming generations to think the green way,” Sastri asserted. A biogas tank that covers the complete need of gas needed at the cafeteria, three sewage plants that recycle water for gardening purposes, recycling newspapers and garbage at campus and a horizontal infrastructure which works on the courtyard concept for optimum light and ventilation are the other arrangements CIS boasts of.
