In times of scam, a shining solar story

At the Alappuzha government medical college hospital, the mortuary is powered by solar energy.

At the Alappuzha government medical college hospital, the mortuary is poweredby solar energy.

Tired of hearing solar panel scam stories? Then here is a feel-good solar power story for you from the Alappuzha Government Medical College Hospital.

The mortuary of the hospital is powered by solar energy.

‘Still experimenting’

“The unit here is 30 KW with which we are running 20 fans, 20 lights, two AC units of 1.5 tonne each and two motors of total 3.5 HP,” said S.Rajagopal, assistant engineer of PWD, Alappuzha Medical College. He said they were still experimenting with the system.

“The idea to introduce solar energy system originated when we came up with the proposal for the mortuary building. The officials in our department asked us to test the solar system to overcome the power crisis,” Mr. Rajagopal said.

The solar panels were installed with the back-up unit of Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) unit and battery series at a cost of Rs. 80 lakhs. Cessil Varghese, assistant executive engineer, is in charge of the unit.

The panels are from the U.S. based company Uni-solar. There are separate solar panels to power the solar heater of 1000 litre capacity for the activities of the mortuary.

“Since the four compressors needed for freezers for keeping bodies have not been installed, the excess current is now diverted for the four ACs of the ninth ward of the hospital. We had an electricity connection from the KSEB, which we are not using for the mortuary,” added Mr. Rajagopal.