When Telangana is currently facing an acute power shortage, this government school in Kattangur village has switched to solar energy and claims to be the only government school in the new State to run on solar energy. It has five classrooms and one room each for staff, headmaster, library, and laboratory. In all, there are 18 fans and nine tubelights running on solar energy.
Earlier, the monthly power bill of the school used to be Rs.1,100, but the initiative of the school to opt for solar photovoltaic (SPV) lighting system to generate their own power has brought down its power charges.
Considerable savingSchool headmaster M. Nagaiah said the government had sanctioned Rs.15 lakh for construction of three new classrooms three years ago. They requested then Collector to release the funds directly to the school management committee so that they could save some money and purchase the SPV costing about Rs.2 lakh.
An NRI N. Harinder guided them in completion of the project, the headmaster said, adding that after construction of the classrooms, they saved Rs. 3 lakh.
The school approached NEDCAP seeking a SPV on subsidy and were offered a 1 KW rooftop SPV on 40 per cent subsidy in July last. Physics teacher B. Srinivas Reddy said that they were able to save Rs.1,000 worth power every month.
Inspiration for manyThe science teachers use the solar energy unit as an example to teach students about renewable energy and environment-friendly resources.
Maths teacher M. Muralaiah said that he had visited several government schools, but never came across such a unit anywhere.
The proud teachers and local people want the Duginevelli experiment to be replicated across schools in Telangana. Jinka Krishna Kumar, a student, said many of the villagers wanted to adopt the model in their houses and farms.
