nuclear-news

Renewable energy transforming education in 1000s of India’s schools

Thousands of schools across the country are shifting towards renewable energy. Leading this emerging trend is Kerala, where the state government has been actively promoting both solar and bio-mass energy.

There are 4,000 government-run schools in the state’s urban areas. 

Indian schools switch over to solar power  Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation – Mon, 17 Feb 2014 Author: Stella Paul  ANANTHAGIRI HILLS, India  – Tenth grade exams are a couple of months off, and Gennu Labudu, a science teacher at Penakota village school in southern India’s Andhra Pradesh state, is expecting his class to do exceptionally well this time. Thanks to a solar photovoltaic (PV) mini-plant that produces and stores solar electricity in the school, Labudu’s students can now study even at night.

In the neighbouring village school in Zenabadu, a solar-powered motor pumps water day and night. It makes eight-year old pupil Laxmi Perikala very happy. The boarder can drink a glass of water whenever she wants, unlike in her village where she has to fetch it from a pond 40 steps below. “It is very difficult. Every time, I carried a pitcher, my neck would hurt,” she said………

Zenabadu and Penakota are two of the 59 schools in the region run by the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), a government body that works for tribal welfare. The ITDA is providing each school with a 1 kilowatt (kW) solar PV kit as a back-up power system, and a solar-run water pump.

According to Venkata Murthy, state coordinator at The Energy Research Institute (TERI), which is ITDA’s implementing partner on the solar scheme, installation has been completed in 20 schools and the rest will be done in two years’ time. The full project cost of 1.4 million rupees (around $2 million) is being funded by the central government.

“Each of these schools usually needs about 6 to 7 kW. So the solar power here is to be used only when there is a failure in grid-power supply,” Murthy said. That happens most days, especially in the evenings.

EMERGING TREND

The ITDA initiative is not an isolated one. Thousands of schools across the country are shifting towards renewable energy. Leading this emerging trend is Kerala, where the state government has been actively promoting both solar and bio-mass energy.

There are 4,000 government-run schools in the state’s urban areas. Under a scheme called the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project, which promotes renewable energy within urban planning, each school will benefit from 1 kW solar panels and a biogas plant. The scheme was launched in January, and several schools have already received their equipment………http://www.trust.org/item/20140217103035-wml93/?source=hptop

February 19, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized