Inspired by Pope Francis’s call from the Vatican to actively combat the harmful effects of climate change , Fr Judis Panackal, vicar of St Francis Assisi Cathedral and his parishioners started looking for ways to conserve energy. It was during that time the idea of setting up solar panels came up. This eventually led to the installation of the 15kW rooftop grid-tied solar power plant at Mariya Sadan at the cathedral on Saturday.
The solar power plant was installed with the help of KSEB, ANERT and Bengaluru – based Orb Energy. The 15kW rooftop installation spanning across 1,500 sq ft consist of 48 panels. As many as 65 units of electricity can be generated from this solar power plant on a daily basis.
The project costed was around Rs 11 lakh. However, with subsidy offered by ANERT it came down to Rs 8 lakh.