Chinnaswamy Stadium to Soon Produce Solar Power

Nobody can deny that India is a cricketing powerhouse. And now, the country could boast of a cricket stadium that may quite literally provide power to the electricity grid. All thank to the Bengaluru sun.

The Chinnaswamy Stadium in the city certainly has seen some energising performances in its colourful history - think along the lines of the electricity generated by Chris Gayle's batting. But now the stadium hopes to actually produce its own power and eventually get off the grid. A 400 kilowatt solar power system has been installed on the roof of the stadium's eastern stands as part of the stadium's green drive.

 

Brijesh Patel, honorary secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association is certainly thinking green.

"We want to make Chinnaswamy Stadium a green stadium. We've started off with waste management. We're producing gas. We've also applied for the STP, Sewage Treatment Plant also because  we are going to face water shortage and we require a lot of water for the spectators," Patel said.

"We've also done rainwater harvesting and this is the next step now; we've done the solar. We've put a 400 KV solar on the

rooftop and we're generating about 1800 units per day. We will generate about six lakh units per year. So, if this is successful, we plan to put it on the western stand as well. A total of 1.3 megawatts is what we want to generate."

 

The powerful lights of the stadium that have lit up many an exciting encounter after dark will however continue to run on the generator. "At the moment, we're not able to use that power because it needs much more power; this runs on generators but as and when the technology improves, the LED becomes much more powerful, It's only then that I think we'll be able to use it."

 

Once the solar panels on the western stands are operational, the KSCA hopes the stadium will able to producing excess power - enough to put some into the power grid.

Greener cricket - that's certainly something to cheer about.