GJUST campus to go green with solar energy

Tribune News Service

Hisar, February 3

Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology (GJUST) here has decided to harness solar energy by installing solar power plants on its buildings on the campus.

This is first-of-its-kind initiative by any university in the country as 1 MW capacity solar plant would cut down the energy bill by around 40 per cent and reduce the environment pollution in terms of lesser carbon dioxide emission.

University Vice-Chancellor Tankeshwar Kumar said here that the solar energy would make the campus more green, clean and self-sustainable in power. “With zero initial cost, the university would get power at a fixed rate of Rs 5.37 per unit for 25 years. The campus has a consumption of 42.85 lakh units in a year. At a cost of Rs 8.89 per unit, we have to shell out around Rs 3.81 crore on electricity bill,” he said. The plant would be made operational by March.

“However, after the solar plant starts functioning, we would save Rs 1.50 crore annually. We will continue grid connection for emergency cases and for consumption at night. However, if there is surplus production of solar power, especially during the holidays when we have lesser power consumption, it can be sent back to the grid through the state net-metering policy,” the VC said.

“Two plants having a capacity of 500 kilo watt each would generate nearly 14 lakh unit energy annually and will reduce more than 1,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission. Since we are a science and technology university, our technical and engineering departments will also do further research in the area of solar power,” he said.

The solar plants would be set up on 13 buildings on the campus. These plants have in-built grid interactive string inverters for better efficiency and to reduce losses. Moreover, the power generated by each individual rooftop plant would be utilised by the same building which will further minimise the transmission and distribution losses, said Ashok Ahlawat, superintending engineer of the GJUST.

The plant would be installed under the scheme of the Solar Energy Corporation of India and an empanelled agency based in NOIDA has been roped in for the project on Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) basis.