Canadian International School (CIS), Bengaluru recently completed 20 years of providing excellence in international education. On this occasion and as a part of their success stories, CIS installed a 300KWh solar plant – the largest capacity in Karnataka. This initiative aims at reducing carbon footprint and taking care of 100 percent of CIS’ electricity needs with excess going towards powering neighbouring households.
In FY15, CIS consumed approximately 4,30,000 KW of electricity. To bring down the consumption, CIS installed a solar plant that can generate up to 5,00,000 KW of electricity, producing an excess of 70,000 KW. As a part of this project, 1875 solar panels have been mounted, out of which each panel holds a capacity of 160 Watts. The energy produced by these is capable of meeting all their electricity needs, while the excess energy is paved back to the grids. The unconsumed energy is later distributed to the surrounding villages and households.

The school uses a thin film technology from a Japanese solar manufacturing company called Solar Frontier, who are the world’s largest provider of Copper, Indium and Seledium; a thin-film solar energy solutions. These modules have technological advantages that are suited to dealing with real-world conditions and producing more electricity, like, better performance in hot conditions, the “light-soaking” effect, low-light behavior and better tolerance for shadows.

This project has positively impacted the students on teachings of sustainability and the environment. CIS has also set up a weather station with temperature, wind solar radiation sensor and complete automation system, so that the students can log in and see the electricity produced by each of the different roofs. This helps them with understanding the correlation between ambient temperatures, cloud cover, incident solar energy and the power produced.

Comments Shweta Sastri, executive director at Canadian International School, Bengaluru, “To commemorate our 20th anniversary, we became the first in Karnataka to install a plant with the largest solar capacity and completely switch to solar energy that is capable of meeting all our electricity needs. Not only are we a carbon positive school, we are also glad that our Green initiatives are making positive impacts amongst our students from a young age and the society.”

Several other initiatives taken by CIS are:

1. Biogas tank which functions to provide gas in the cafeteria

2. Three sewage treatment plants on campus that recycles water and is used for watering the landscape, flora and fauna

3. Recycling of garbage and newspapers on campus

4. An infrastructure which is horizontal and captures the courtyard concept for optimum ventilation and light.