Auroville, near Puducherry, India is an interesting experiment promoting the concept of sustainable township. People from a lot of countries have come together and are living in a small self-sustained community following sustainable living practices. Members have taken up a lot of green initiatives/activities and most of their activities are powered using renewable energy. Among others,
- Their renewable energy quest started with a wind mill back in the early 1970's that could fetch water from 10 - 15 meters below the earth and hence help community members save a lot of manual labor involved in fetching/pumping water. They also made wind mills to grind grain and other hard objects. Today, they manufacture their own micro wind turbines and they even make solar-wind hybrid systems to generate electricity using wind.
- During the early years, since they did not get power from the grid or since the power was unreliable, Solar PV was implemented for electrification. Solar PV is now used for a lot of activities including electrifying homes, water pumping, etc. They have even incubated a business that designs, assembles, sells and maintains Solar PV modules for commercial lighting/electrification projects.
- They use highly-efficient LED lamps powered by solar panels for public/home lighting. They use DC fans and other electrical appliances that can directly be connected to the solar panels/batteries.
- They use evacuated tube collector based solar water heating systems. Since heat is abundant in this part of the world, they harness the heat to produce hot water for taking bath, etc.
- They have set up a 15 meter (dia) solar bowl based on the Concentrated Solar Power technology (CSP) that can produce enough steam to cook meals for more than 1000 people in the collective kitchen.
- Their solar system uses computer controlled sun-tracking mechanisms like heliostats in order to maximize their energy efficiency by automatically focusing towards the direction of the sun (hence increasing the amount of sunlight received).
- They have incubated various renewable energy initiatives and created businesses that builds, installs and maintains renewable energy systems in various parts of India.
There are a lot of things that people need to learn from a community like Auroville. Many of their sustainable living practices can be adopted to villages/cities and can do a lot of good for the people/environment. Head to their home page and explore everything you want to know about Auroville from there. Even if you don't want to live there, this place is definitely worth a visit.
