The Hindu             19.11.2013

More schools in Coimbatore to get solar cookers

Karthik Madhavan

It is proving to be cost-effective, environment friendly

After experimenting with solar power in cooking noon meal for students in a corporation school, the Coimbatore Corporation has decided to provide them to a few more schools.

The corporation, sometime in August, installed two solar cookers at the North Coimbatore School at Rs. 68,000.

Corporation Commissioner G. Latha had said that the civic body was keen on tapping alternative sources of energy to bring down reliance on conventional sources of energy and provide a friendly kitchen environment for workers, who had been struggling with firewood.

Now the corporation had decided to increase the number of solar cookers to five.

This followed a positive feedback from the North Coimbatore School and an audit of the benefits, said sources.

Though the sky had been cloudy and it had been raining, the noon meal workers there were able to boil eggs and a few other items.

Problem

They had problem with boiling rice in the cooker as the time consumed was longer.

The sources said that the cooker took around an hour to cook 3 kg rice.

A study conducted by N. Ravi Shankar, an energy auditor, was almost complete and that the report would be out very soon.

The sources said that the study had revealed that the use of solar cookers could lead to savings.

The exact quantity of savings would be known only after the audit report was submitted.

The sources said that in the next phase, the corporation would install the solar cookers in all the higher secondary schools and thereafter in all the 86 schools under its control.

The Coimbatore Corporation would get subsidy from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Resources.

Coimbatore has been declared a solar mission city by the Union Government.