Kerala: Over 46,000 solar panels have been laid out across 45 acres of land to fuel the operations of Cochin airport, which will soon be the fourth largest in terms of international passenger traffic.
Officials of the airport in the south-western state of Kerala say it will now be “absolutely power neutral” and this in return produce an excess that will increase the states electricity grid.
50,000 and 60,000 units of electricity will be supplied each day by the megawatt plant, which is commissioned by the German multinational engineering and electronics company Bosch at a cost of US$9.5 million, according to the project designers.
“When we realized the scale of our power bill, we looked at various possibilities,” says V.J. Kurian, Cochin International’s managing director.“We consume around 48,000 units of power a day. So if we can produce the same by strictly adhering to the green and sustainable model of infrastructure development we always follow, we can send a message to the world.”
“Now this has become the world’s first airport that fully operates on Solar Power. In fact, we are producing a few megawatts of extra energy, which is being contributed to the state’s power grid.”
India which is mostly dependent on coal-fired power plants for its energy, is the worlds fourth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by sending nearly 1.3 million tonnes into the atmosphere each year.
Rest of the Indian airports are now being urged by the government to follow Cochin’s lead. Around the world, other airports are adopting solar power to run all or part of their ground operations.
Few new international airports are also aiming at the solar features integration into its operations.
Cochin International says its new solar plant, which began operations in mid-August, is cost-effective, very efficient and has attracted widespread attention.
The airport’s public relations manager, P.S.Jayan, told Climate News Network: “During the inauguration of the airport service, schoolchildren visited to see how solar energy is used to operate the entire airport facility.
“We have received many requests from schoolteachers who want to send their students here to learn about renewable energy.”
