The Cochin International Airport (CIAL) in Kerala, India is set to become the first airport in the country to be fully powered by solar energy.
A 12MW solar photovoltaic (PV) facility in the airport premises is due to be inaugurated next week, which will power the facility.
The plant features over 46,00 solar panels installed over a 45-acre area. It is expected to generate 48000 units of electricity a day.
Bosch carried out the work of the project, which features Renesola’s PV modules with 265Wp of capacity, and 1MW of inverters manufactured by ABB India.
The energy generated from the plant will be fed in to the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) grid. The airport will buy the power from KSEB as per its requirements.
CIAL installed a 100 kWp solar PV Plant on the roof top of the arrival terminal block in March 2013.
The airport also has a 1MW plant partly on the rooftop and partly on the ground in the aircraft maintenance hangar facility.
Both the plants facilities feature a SCADA system, through which remote monitoring is undertaken.
Upon commissioning, the plants have to date saved over 550 metric tons of CO2 emissions.