Chinnaswamy Stadium: British envoy visits Bengaluru; hails India's 1st clean energy Centre

“So South India; how do I eat tomorrow’s dosa?” asked British High Commissioner to India Alex Ellis as he made a visit to M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru along with his counterpart deputy high commissioner, Jeremy on Wednesday. The latter held talks with Roger Binny, Secretary, Santosh Menon, Vice President. J. Abhiram about the future of cricket and expressed a desire to boost cooperation with the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) for initiatives and projects related to ‘environmental friendly’ techniques.

Ellis hailed the clean renewable energy installations in the stadium such as photovoltaic (PV) modules, biogas plants, the SubAir Sport System, rainwater harvesting, and the sewage treatment plant. 

Having separately held a dialogue with Vinay Mruthyunjaya, treasurer and official spokesperson of Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA), Ellis paid a visit to National Cricket Academy (NCA) to have further discussions with Rahul Dravid, Head Cricketing Operations, NCA. "Alex Ellis extended his support for opportunities for young cricket talents to play in Counties in England,” a spokesperson for KSCA Mruthyunjaya told news agency ANI. At NCA, the British envoy held the talks regarding the training and facilities for the future players. Ellis spoke about his plans of expanding sports stadiums and other facilities as the increase in the figures of the players demanded more room for training and equipment. 

India’s first ‘green’ stadium

Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium is an exemplar for green technologies as its annual 600,000 kWh consumption of electricity is generated from solar energy. The eco-friendly sports stadium is one of the renowned cricket venues in India known to be reliable on environmentally-friendly technologies. Labelled as India’s first ‘green’ stadium, the venue hosts one of the largest footfalls of cricket enthusiasts, although that has shrunk due to closed-door sporting events amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The stadium pioneered modern environmentally-friendly technology to reduce carbon footprint and manage climate change during the era of Brijesh Patel, the KSCA (Karnataka State Cricket Academy) Secretary, and former test match cricketer. M. Chinnaswamy Stadium’s circular rooftops are covered with photovoltaic cells that generate clean 400 kilovolts (1,700 units per day) of electricity from solar power.