Brief Project Description
The project aims to provide a fully renewable energy supply for the Druk White Lotus School which accommodates 506 students, including 158 residential students from remote areas. The school currently comprises a nursey and infant school and a junior school, with a secondary school due for completion in 2011. It is a not-for-profit fee paying school with fees set at locally affordable levels. The school has a master sustainability plan which includes the provision of solar energy, sports areas, recycling and composting and the growing of produce in greenhouses. More than one thousand trees were planted on the campus during 2008.
This renewable energy scheme will seek to replace the existing 25KVA diesel generator, currently supplying the school, with an island grid powered by photovoltaic arrays mounted on each of the school buildings. When the project is completed, it will provide all the school's electricity throughout the year, both during the day and at night. There is also the potential for the connection of a small wind turbine to the system, which would be undertaken on an experimental basis to gain information about local wind conditions and test its cost-effectiveness.
Large parts of Ladakh rely on snow-melt for their water supply. Climate change is influencing snowfall and snowmelt characteristics, and some villages are already beginning to have water supply problems due to the disappearance of the permafrost. Although the project will have only a relatively tiny impact on the global scale, it will help to reduce diesel emissions in this high-altitude environment.
The system will offer a key learning experience for the children as they will see in their own school environment the renewable, sustainable energy being used to run their facilities. They will face huge sustainability issues in Ladakh in their adult lives and so seeing that it can work at school will be highly valuable to them. As they leave school, they will hopefully take the renewable energy message into the local community.
Ladakh is endowed with abundant sunshine, even in winter, thus the renewable energy sector offers job opportunities in Ladakh in the future. Druk White Lotus School will aim to equip its students with the knowledge and skills required to work in this sector, thus supporting future sustainable livelihoods.
The School welcomes visitors to see the progress of the project by prior arrangement.