Cochin has the worlds first fully solar powered airport

Source: The first world's first solar-powered airport is in Cochin, India - Mar. 14, 2016

Fed up with their hefty electricity bill, managers at Cochin International Airport in southern India took matters into their own hands.

Three years ago, they began adding solar panels -- first on the roof of the arrivals terminal, then on and around an aircraft hangar. The success of those initial efforts led to a much bigger endeavor.

"We wanted to be independent of the electricity utility grid," Jose Thomas, the airport's general manager, told CNNMoney.

Last year, the airport commissioned the German company Bosch to build a vast 45-acre solar plant on unused land near the international cargo terminal.

The plant came online in August, making Cochin the world's first fully solar-powered airport.

The tens of thousands of panels generate on average slightly more than the roughly 48,000-50,000 kilowatts of power that the airport -- the seventh busiest in India -- uses per day, according to Thomas. Surplus energy is fed into the wider electricity grid.

The big project cost around 620 million rupees ($9.3 million), a sum the airport expects to save in less than six years by not having to pay electricity bills anymore. It also estimates the solar plant will avoid more than 300,000 metric tons of carbon emissions from coal power over the next 25 years.

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@Mods, could someone fix the typo plz? I was posting from mobile.

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^^Changed the title. Anything else?

BTW, great news.

T

I heard it's top speed is around 80 Km/h. I think there is no use of a plane with this kind of speed.

N

Hi, I have no idea for solor powered airport so please tell me about this.

how they light up the airport in the night ?

they store energy through out day and then utilize it in nights. Not sure though

TheSloth said:
they store energy through out day and then utilize it in nights. Not sure though

how do they store energy ?

batteries obviously

to meet the energy requirements of an airport @ night, they will need few hazar tubular/inverter batteries. i wonder if they really make such a big battery bank......

somany numbers of lead acid battery would cause environmental hazard anyways, may be.

icebags said:
to meet the energy requirements of an airport @ night, they will need few hazar tubular/inverter batteries. i wonder if they really make such a big battery bank......

somany numbers of lead acid battery would cause environmental hazard anyways, may be.

I can't think of how they would manage to store so much energy in batteries either but an option maybe would be store it on "the grid" , selling the extra in the daytime and then buying it back during the night. This would definitely be cheaper and while still saving a lot during the day.

MadScorp said:
I can't think of how they would manage to store so much energy in batteries either but an option maybe would be store it on "the grid" , selling the extra in the daytime and then buying it back during the night. This would definitely be cheaper and while still saving a lot during the day.

may be, but grid walas probably dont pay as much money for selling electricity to them.

but storing energy in coal is a good step towards greenification.