19, Jan 2012

The Indian Institute of Management, Shillong has always been known as a strong promoter of sustainable energy. So it does not come as a surprise that it has implemented another novel idea to reduce its daily consumption of energy — placing solar panels in its campus, a campus that accommodates a total of 215 people at any point of time. The solar panels, which have a capacity of 50 KW each, were installed by IIM Shillong authorities in collaboration with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. These panels will supply power to the entire campus including the administrative building, classrooms, 72 hostel rooms, guest houses, mess, and dining halls.

The solar panels, placed on top of the new boys’ hostel in the campus, are positioned and geographically located in a manner that they face early sunrise, thus capturing all the energy that can be tapped from 4:40 am to 5:30 pm. “The installation of solar panels saves a lot of electricity and by not going for conventional methods of electricity generation of fossil fuels, the entire setup is eco-friendly and helps to maintain the serenity of the place,” said Keshav Sridhar, a member of the student PRO cell. Since Shillong is cold for most parts of the year, it does not use air-conditioners, he added; therefore, electricity consumption is anyway low compared to the other b-schools. “However, hot water is used in large quantities for bathing purposes because of the cold weather. Since we depend on hot water so much, this solar facility will greatly help,” Keshav added.

These solar panels will save, on an average, 150,000 units of electricity per year. To generate that much of electricity from a coal-based power plant, according to Keshav, 1.5 tons of coal will be required; such a quantity of coal will release some 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide per year. The solar panels were much talked about at the International Conference on Energy Sustainability, which was recently held at IIM Shillong, and the local community of Shillong welcomed the concept with enthusiasm.