In a recent interaction with the media, the union aviation minister recently urged all the airports to go solar. Taking cue from the minister, the Chennai Airport is now planning to go solar. The airport will soon have a 1.5 MW solar plant ready and this will help them save Rs 8 crore every year. Most of the work of the solar project is done and it will be operational in a month or two.
The airport is presently playing Rs 20 crore as electrocity bill every year but with the use of solar rooftop, the energy bill will reduce to Rs 12 crore per year. The airport also pkans to set up another 7.5 MW of solar plant in the airport premises which will help them take care of the full electricity needs.
There are 125 airports in India that is operated by Airports Authority of India (AAI). The AAI wants to implement solar energy in atleast 50 airports initially and then progress further to other airports. Here it should be noted that in Tamil Nadu, the Tiruchy and Madurai airports are also planning to set up solar plants. The Chennai airport project started in May 2014.
Along with Chennai, airports in Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kolkata and Chandigarh had also taken up installation of solar power panels. Last August, Kochi became the world’s first airport to operate completely on solar power.
By Atanu Kumar Das
