Kerala CM's office going green, with solar power

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Whatever may be the verdict from Neyyatinkara, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s office is going to be bright and sunny from Monday. For, a part of the Chief Minister’s office is shifting to solar power, an energy source he has been interested in for a while now. This will also mark the unofficial launch of ‘Surya Keralam’, an extensive solar power programme to be implemented by Centre For Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT), in collaboration with the Agency for Non-conventional Energy and Rural Technology (ANERT), Energy Management Centre Kerala (EMC)and the state electricity department.

“What we envisage in the pilot programme of Surya Keralam is the setting up of solar units in 10 government schools, 10 primary health centres, 10 panchayat offices and 10 homes. If this turns out to be successful we will upscale it,” said K Mohankumar, deputy director of C-DIT.The C-DIT officials have already held discussions with Minister for Panchayats M K Muneer, who is upbeat about the project. Discussions are also under way with Education Minister Abdu Rabb and Health Minister V S Shivakumar.The solar unit for chief minister’s office has been designed by Shyamkumar, technical director, Trivandrum Global City Initiative (TGCI), who has already set up a number of functional solar units in the city, including a street lamp project for NABARD.“What we are setting up at the CM’s office is a 1 kw unit project, the same as was set up at former ANERT director RVG Menon’s home. Since the CM’s office is functional almost 24 hours of the day, we will be converting all lights to solar energy in the first phase,” said Shyamkumar.“If we could convert the 24 tube lights in CM’s office the LED way, a huge amount of energy could be saved. Initially, we are thinking of converting two of these tube lights to LED, just to demonstrate the amount of energy that could be saved,” he added.Since LED lights will consume only half the power, the solar power generated could be used for double the time. When 70 per cent of power stored in the battery is exhausted, the inverter switches back to KSEB line. The remaining 30 per cent is saved for any possible interruption in the KSEB power supply.Earlier, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had opted to go Green in March this year when his official residence-cum-office switched to solar power.