Solar power to light up city engineering college

NASHIK: The Karamveer Baburao Thakare College of Engineering managed by Maratha Vidya Prasarak Institute is all set to become self-reliant for its power supply needs. The private college would install solar panels in its premises as a part of pilot project to reduce its dependency on power companies.
College principal Jayant Pattiwar said the initiative was taken to save energy and reduce burden on natural resources.“Being a technical and educational institute, it was decided that we should implement the energy conservation steps to reduce the burden on natural resources. The geographical location of the city would enable us to harness the solar energy to its optimum level,” he added.
The MVP institute runs pre-primary, primary and higher secondary schools in Marathi and English medium, ashram schools and other nursing, management, engineering and medical colleges. The project for solar initiative ‘Payal’ is being done under the centenary year celebration of the institute this year. It is the second largest institute in the state.
Pattiwar said a proposal was submitted by the management for feasibility of the project and its cost. “The college is spending a sum of about Rs 2.5 lakh every month on power consumption even after implementing energy conservation techniques. The cost of the project would be around Rs 80 lakh which would help in the long term. At present, we are holding talks with various multi national companies for the project. The actual work is expected to begin in next six months,” he added.
The principal said the college would install solar panels to help generate 75KW of electricity. “The college would primarily use power generated from solar panels. However, if the consumption increases over 75KW, we will take support from the power utility company,” he added.
The college has identified the space to set up the solar panels. The space under the panels would be used as parking area, research lab or other academic purposes. If the project is successful at the city premises, it would be replicated in other education centres to help spread awareness about use of solar, he added.
MVP secretary Nilima Pawar said the students are always given lessons of environment conservation and use of non-conventional sources, but the institute was actually putting it into practice.