Energy Sustainability through Renewable Sources in Libraries – A Study

Abstract

Libraries are store houses of knowledge functioning as service sector and playing major role in education all over the world. Libraries are not just enough to be user friendly but also be ecofriendly. Libraries should collect more resources but really the more the library grow it accumulates dust, pest and pollution. A poor maintained library can cause chronic disease like throat ulcer, bronchitis, and dust allergy, emit greenhouse gases. This pollution and emission can be reduced by strategic planning in utilizing energy efficiently, implementation of technological advances in library environment, making library more informative and giving library a new phase on sustainability. This paper describes on energy generation and utilization from green, fossil free, self-generated 0% emission solar power panels and wind energy structures. From a pilot scale study, nearing 100% of respondents have given their opinion that libraries have shrinking budgets and self-sustainability has become need of the hour. Self-sustainability can be attained from implementation of all possible strategies in library operations especially from energy consumption. Implementation of solar energy according to the quantity required or consumed by the library should be estimated and physical structures should be installed. These structures produce electricity from heat energy from sun, converted and supplied through specially designed batteries. Self-sufficient, energy efficient solar powered libraries around the world are taken as preamble, advantages, further implementation techniques are discussed in this paper helps to take library and environment a step head in energy sustainability.