When it comes to protecting the environment every small step matters. And the largest airport operator in the country, the state owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) is also trying to do its bit at the 125 airports that is owns and maintains, of which 95 are currently operational.

For starters, AAI has installed and commissioned roof top solar panels at Calicut, Bhopal, Indore, Raipur, Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati and nine other airports around the country with a total installed capacity of 5.4 MW.

Of the other airports, Chennai, Madurai and Hyderabad are among the 11 airports where installation of solar roof top projects is underway and expected to be completed in the next 3-4 months.

“The trial run for the 2.5 MW roof top solar panel has started. We are hoping to get the remaining 6.5 MW capacity of solar panels operational before the financial year is over. These will be set up at ground level,” Deepak Shastri, Chennai Airport Director told Business Line.

The roof and ground solar units should see Chennai airport saving almost ₹30-40 crore from its annual bill of ₹ 80 crore, Shastri says.

Besides, work on installing ground mounted solar projects is on in Chandigarh, where it is hoped it will be finished by October this year and in Kolkata and Jaipur where December is the completion date. In addition, feasibility studies to enhance the capacity of ground mounted solar projects are in progress to install solar plants at major airports.

“Between July this year and July last year, when the solar project was commissioned, there has been a saving of ₹9 lakh in our electricity bill. Apart from this monetary saving the airport has also been able to reduce its carbon footprint,” says BK Tailong, Airport Director, Jaipur.

In Jaipur, the airport roof top solar panel was commissioned in 2015. It has already generated 1.5 lakh units which helps meet all the needs of the airport.

The other attempts at conserving energy at Jaipur airport include maximum use of LED lighting, installing of variable frequency drives for air conditioning equipment and providing energy efficient pumps and motors.

Once these individual attempts are pooled together AAI’s efforts would have helped generate about 51 lakh units from solar projects that have been completed at airports around the country in the last two years. It has also helped reduce 4,600 metric tonnes of carbon emissions during the same period, officials say.

Conserving energy, however, is not the only focus of AAI. Water conservation is also on the radar. For this, sewerage treatment plants have been set up at different airports and attempts are also being made to recycle waste water. This water is being used for horticulture, fire fighting and air conditioning.

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