IIT Madras Research Park, which runs a 1.2 million sq ft building that provides plug-and-play facilities for corporate R&D centres, reckons that it can save Rs 4 crore a year just by buying wind and solar power and storing it. 

The Research Park, which also houses the IIT Madras Incubation Cell that has spawned over 300 start-ups, has come to this conclusion after a detailed study. It is now implementing the plan. 

“Today, I pay Rs 12.30 a kWhr of electricity,” says Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, the septuagenarian academic-cum-entrepreneur, who set up the Rs 400-crore IIT Madras Research Park on 11.5 acres of land on Chennai’s IT corridor. “But with wind, solar and storage, the cost of my electricity works out to Rs 9,” Jhunjhunwala told businessline on Friday.  IIT Madras Research Park’s study, titled ‘Zero to Green – Buildings for Planet and Profit’, was launched on Friday at ‘Climafix 2023’ summit, organised at the research park by the renewable energy consultancy, Energy Alternatives India (EAI). The summit brought together over 500 start-ups and almost 200 investors. 

The building already has 1-MW of rooftop solar. Jhunjhunwala said that IIT Madras Research Park Ltd, a Section 8 (not-for-profit) company, has contracted to buy electricity from 4 MW of solar and 2 MW of wind on open access from energy companies in Tamil Nadu—on ‘group captive’ basis, (which means the research park company will take at least 26 per cent stake in the energy company and purchase at least 51 per cent of the power generated). Battery storage as well as chilled water storage are to be brought into play. About 90 per cent of the building’s electricity requirements will be met by green energy. 

The Section 8 company will invest ₹21.53 crore and get ₹3.94 crore of annual savings; the investment will be paid back in five-and-half years — after which all the electricity is free. 

The report, which gives detailed calculations for cost-benefit analysis, notes that India has about 40,000 commercial complexes—office buildings, shopping malls, restaurants, etc—and the number will triple by 2030. “The per-unit tariff for commercial customers is, on an average, 40 per cent higher compared with residential and industrial tariffs across the country,” it says. 

Industrial customers, who pay about ₹10 a kWhr for electricity, will also save, Jhunjhunwala noted, adding that with scale, it is possible to bring down the average cost of purchased and stored green energy to under ₹8 a kWhr. 

This report happens to come at a time when the MSME sector in Tamil Nadu has announced a strike on Monday (September 25) to protest the state utility’s tariff hike. 

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW