International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) ISSN (Online): 2319-7064 Index Copernicus Value (2015): 78.96 | Impact Factor (2015): 6.391 Volume 6 Issue 9, September 2017 www.ijsr.net Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY Feasibility Study of Solar Power Plant for Pondicherry University Deepak Acharya 1*, 2 , Khina Gautam 3 , Arun Prasath 2 1 Royal Society for Protection of Nature, Lhado Lam, Kawangjangsa, Thimphu, Bhutan deepak.psnacet[at]gmail.com 3 North Bengal University, Department of Commerce, Dagapur, near pintail Village, Siliguri – India khinagautam89[at]gmail.com 2 Laboratory for Energy Materials and Sustainability, Pondicherry University, India raprasad[at]gmail.com Abstract: Globally energy demand is increasing day by day due to increase in population, urbanization and industrialization. The solar energy among other have the abundant capacity to support the increasing energy demand without intensifying the climate change impacts to the globe and its components. The isolated solar street lights installed in the outer circle of silver jubilee campus was a part of green incentive taken by the Pondicherry University to reduce the climate change issue during the establishment of the silver jubilee campus in 2010. With the time, the solar street lights faced new challenges that have significantly reduced the efficiency due to shading effects with the growing trees and some other social and security issues. The scope of work involves the study of the installed solar street lights and exploration of the opportunity for its better utilization by conducting of technical, economical and operational feasibility of uninstalling those panels utilized for street lightings and employing to construct the 7 KWp grid tie power plant in the terrace of administration block. Key word: Energy security, solar photovoltaic system, street lights, climate change 1. Background The predominant source of energy until 1800 had been above the ground which means we had been burning wood for energy. With the industrial revolution, we started manufacturing things on large quantity which demand the use of buried carbon (oil, coal and natural gas) [1]. The carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have direct correlation with the global temperature. Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas, which drive global warming haven’t been this high between 800,000 and 15 million years [2]. The 400 ppm carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere toady against 280 ppm earlier serves to show how much GHG has been added to the atmosphere since preindustrial times. The increase in this and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has warmed Earth’s average temperature by 1.6 o F since the beginning of the 20 th century 2 . Although scientists’ figure on climate change differs slightly, many of them agree that some kind of inventions by academicians, politicians, government and individual is necessary. Globally the energy generation is one of the important source of carbon emission with 32000 metric tons of carbon in 2014 [3]. The major share of energy comes from conventional source like underground carbon with more than 90 % emission. Although the renewable energy systems contribute to the emission during its manufacture and assembly, it is significantly very low. On the other angle, energy plays a pivotal role in our daily activities. The degree of development of a country is measured / indicated by the amount of energy utilization by human beings. The energy planning study for the Uttar Kannada region in Karnataka state revealed that the energy demand can be met with the renewable energy sources [4]. The emissions of CO2, SOx, NOx for the Tamil Nadu state in the southern grid accounts to 46.657 million tons, 0.364 million tons and 0.130 million tons per year [5]. The world’s fossil fuel supply viz. coal, petroleum and natural gas will thus be depleted in a few hundred years. Energy crises results due to increased energy consumption and decreased energy supply resulting in energy inflation and shortage. Hence alternative or renewable sources of energy have to be developed to meet future energy requirement. With the consistent growth of PV technology economically and technologically, the global installed capacity of Solar PV systems approached 23GW by the end of 2009, and rose to 69 GW by the end of 2011 which could produce over 85 Terra Watt-Hours of energy annually. The total installed capacity of Solar PV Grid connected systems in India by March, 2013 was 1686.44MW [6]. The climate change due to energy generation and consumption can be addressed through energy management which includes energy efficiency improvements and reviving of renewable energy like solar, wind, ocean, geothermal etc. Among all the solar energy has the highest potential to fulfill the energy demand for both present and future. The world energy assessment report, 2000 found the annual potential of solar energy was around 49,837 EJ which is several times larger than total world energy consumption, which was 559 EJ in 2012. Every hour enough sun light energy reaches the earth to meet the world’s energy demand for whole year. The solar energy can be harvested using two different technologies namely solar thermal and solar photovoltaic systems. The present works focuses on conducting the feasibility study of solar power plant in the terrace of administrative block of Pondicherry University which is also an action towards the climate change mitigation although in small scale. Paper ID: 1081702 DOI: 10.21275/1081702 406