Archive

Bombay has the potential to generate 1.7 GW (giga watts) of solar energy for electricity, according to a report released by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and quoted by The Hindu of April 11, 2017. With the central government aiming for 40% of India’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2022, comes news that the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) has led the way. "We are very proud to be one of the first cultural institutions in the country to be self- sustaining” (in the generation of solar energy), Khushroo Suntook, chairman, NCPA told Parsiana on April 11. Referring to their rooftop solar power project as "an extremely crucial step demonstrating our commitment to… society at large,” Suntook added that "sustainability is truly the need of the hour.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

A report in The Economic Times (ET) of March 28 called the project "the city’s largest private rooftop solar project… atop the vast terraces of the Tata Theatre, Jamshed Bhabha and Experimental Theatre buildings of the NCPA.” The system, which will yield 450 KW (kilo watts) of solar energy per year, was inaugurated by Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra, on March 29. The Centre’s chief engineer Nayan Kale told ET that the panels will "help the institution save one-third of its annual electricity consumption,” estimated at Rs 50-55 lakhs per year.
NCPA had experimented with going green a few years ago too, according to the report. Suntook told the newspaper that "at that time solar equipment was very heavy” and "the structures are not equipped to take heavy load.” Avesta Solar, the company that installed the project on a build-own-operate model, imported lightweight panels from Germany.
Burgis Bulsara, owner of Avesta Solar estimates a life-span of "20-25 years” for the equipment. Noting that the equipment is designed to withstand wind speeds of up to 180 km per hour, he told ET that "we had to make sure the system does not suffer corrosion... Nothing must go wrong during the monsoon.”