In January 2015, IEEE (Institute of electrical and electronics engineers) New york wanted to try some new technologies in Solar energy at a few places in India. They had asked me find out a test site. I had suggested them a school near Kukke subramanya, in the heart of western ghats in Karnataka. For some reason, by August 2015, they backed out of the experiment in India. I had however promised the school that i would help them out in their power situation.
Gopalakrishna School in Puttur Taluk near kukke subramanya is a partially government aided Kannada medium school. They have a pretty poor pass percentage in class X. Most students stay in nearby hilly areas with poor access to electricity. Though this school is connected to state power utility grid, the power supply is erratic and they do not have power for most parts of the day .The school conducts special evening and night classes for class X students from mid january till the class X exams are over. So the boys and girls of class X students stay up in the school from January till mid april.
The school is located in in the forest range and for all practical purposes does not have power supply. The school faces a lot of problems during the months of Jan to April when students stay back in the school for classes and reading. The students had to put up with darkness .The school authorities were using Kerosene lamps and torches for classes and cooking.
I was impressed by the dedication of the school staff. By turn, they would stay back in the school to organize and conduct night classes. Teachers were cooking in the dark. There was no way i could back up from my promise.
By January 2016, i thought i must raise some money from friends and family for putting up a solar power unit in the school. I approached a few of my clients and they readily agreed to partially fund the project. My sister Jhanavi (Bindu) sponsored a big chunk of the project. 
However, we still had to raise more money and we thought of the idea of crowdfunding . We put up our campaign and within a few months we got sufficient funds.
Though we could not power the entire school , we were successful in raising enough money for powering two rooms where kids stay , the kitchen and the dining room.
We were however late since by the time we raised funds ,the rains had started and it was not possible to install the system.
Finally in october of 2016, we decided to install the system.
We replaced the old fans by energy efficient fans , Thanks to Sunil Sood , an environmentalist based out of Bangalore and Atomberg technologies , Mumbai, we were able to source highly efficient ceiling fans.
We replaced all lights by LED lights so that the power consumption goes down. We have given many spare lights so that they do not have trouble sourcing lights in case of bulb burnout.
In most off grid projects , maintenance of lead acid batteries is the biggest issue. Many Thanks to Veeresh Anehosur and BOSBalance of Storage Systems AG Germany, for giving us the Lithium battery for a very concessional rate,.we have used a 12 V Smart Lithium ion battery pack which caters to critical loads and prevents discharge of lead acid batteries (Which is used in parallel with the Lithium ion battery) .
This project was possible only because of generous contribution from friends and family. Special thanks to my sister Jahnavi Jagadish for sponsoring the major part of of the project. Many thanks to Barki Narayanrao Ramadevi and Pranesh Mysore Bheema Rao.
Many many thanks to Ramkumar Radhakrishnan, Pranav Rajanala and Mrs Indu Thomas who are more friends to us than clients. They are very receptive of our ideas and have been supporting us in many of our ideas and projects.
Many thanks to my friends Mahesh Kumar, Sri Harsha, Anjana Nataraja, Adhi Kesarla, Rajesh Lalgowdar, Suraj Gokhale, Pawamana Ramachandra , Avinash Narayanaswamy, Varun Nagpal for very generous contributions.
Special thanks again to Avinash narayanaswamy for giving us his fabulous Skoda car for transporting the materials.
Last but not the least Special thanks to our colleagues Chitti Babu, Shivaraj Thallam and Mayur M Rotti who deciphered the complicated old wiring and retrofitted the new system without any major glitches.
The system was commissioned in october 2016 and the class X students have used it to the fullest for preparing for their class X exams. From Mid january , the system has helped the school authorities to cook food for the students staying in the school. The students could read comfortably thanks to the fans which could beat out the humidity. There was enough and more lights for the students to read and prepare for the exams. The school principal told me over phone today “This year we had a very comfortable time”.
The story here is not about school .It is about the satisfaction that you derive by doing something positive. The sheer joy in being a part of someone’s joy cannot be described in words.
Many years back, i had done a done a similar project at a school building near nelamangala. There, we collected rooftop rainwater from a school building filtered that water and stored in an underground sump. Few months after that project , i received a letter from the school saying that year they had 4 more girl students enrolling into the school since there was water in the washrooms.
My dad used to say “You will never get all that you want and there will be no end to your want. Your sole purpose in life must be to be of some positive value to someone. Having an aspiration beyond yourself and working towards it is the only way to sustained happiness”.
