Mumbai: A group of more than 70 passionate young students from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay are hooked on to building a modern, comfortable house that is run entirely on solar energy — a zero electricity project that is also being designed for the upcoming city of Amravati in Andhra Pradesh.
Team Shunya, which stands for Sustainable Habitat for an Urbanising Nation by its Young Aspirants, is all set to now participate at Solar Decathlon China 2018, an international competition that challenges student teams to design, build and operate highly energy-efficient, completely solar-powered houses.
Working on this much-needed modern, efficient dwelling, the student team has successfully built such a house which is fully functional with sufficient lighting, air conditioning, well furnished with three rooms and a kitchen. Says Prem Patel, Web and Communication Head, Team Shunya, IITB, “The house runs on solar energy using rooftop panels and not just uses zero electrical energy from the grid but also is capable to generate and feed excess energy to the grid on a bright sunny day.”
The inaugural construction of the Team Shunya’s house took place today in the presence of Professor Devang Khakhar, Director, IITB. “We will construct the solar-powered house on the campus here, test it, then disassemble and shift it to Dezhou, Shandong, China, to reconstruct the house for the competition scheduled in July-August this year,” said Patel. It is being jointly held by China National Energy Administration, the Department of Energy, USA and the China Association for Overseas Industry Development. The house needs to be constructed completely by students in 12 days at the competition venue. The group is one of the 22 selected teams for Solar Decathlon out of 47 entries from several international universities. Around 40 students will be travelling to China.
The team will be showcasing the country’s advancement in solar housing designed for Amravati, the new city to come up as Andhra Pradesh’s capital. Project Solarise is an amalgamation of traditional architecture with contemporary designs. The project intends to cater to the housing needs of government officials, corporate employees and industrialists. The modular house with habitable area of 1800 sq ft would be easy to erect, commission, decommission and even transport.
The team’s goal is to design, construct and operate a modular, solar-powered ‘Net Positive Energy’ house so as to sustainably meet the growing demand and need for urban housing in India. A further impact would be to revolutionise India’s industrial sector through modular and pre-fabricated methodology.
