City airport finds it hard to harness solar energy
Chennai: Chennai airport lags behind in harnessing solar energy while smaller airports have installed more generating capacity in the past few years. The city airport does not have adequate land to install solar panels to lean more on clean energy.
The airport now has capacity to generate 1.6MWp (mega watt peak) solar power from rooftop panels, while smaller airports in Chandigarh and Jaipur have more installed capacity, shows statistics presented by aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri in the Lok Sabha. Chandigarh has 3MWp capacity from ground-mounted panels while Jaipur has 1.9MWp capacity, 1.8MWp of which is from ground-mounted panels. Trichy, also smaller, generates 1.1MWp — 1MWp from ground-mounted panels.
Kolkata tops AAI-run airports in harnessing solar power, with 17MWp.
Lack of land and use of land to develop ground facilities for flights fearing a second airport will be delayed, have caused the airport to slow down on solar power generation. Nevertheless, the airport is planning to step up generation so that dependence on the grid could be reduced.
