March 25: If monthly expenses on electricity and LPG are burning a hole in your pocket and you don’t know what to do, help is on the way. Students are setting up energy clubs in city schools to help create awareness on the judicious use of energy.

As part of the implementation of a school education programme — Building Energy Awareness on Conservation (BEACON) — in the city, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), North East centre, is setting up energy clubs in schools.

“The primary objective of the club is to sensitise the people on how best to conserve energy. The club members would visit different localities and households in the city to help create awareness on energy conservation,” Naba Kumar Goswami, associate fellow of TERI-NE centre, said.

He said there are several occasions in which electricity and LPG are often wasted without any reason. Many a time people are totally ignorant about the judicious use of energy.

A minimum of 30 students will be identified to set up energy clubs in every school. This group will assist the teacher-in-charge during the period of the BEACON project and will be responsible for sustaining the introduced activities after the duration of the proposed project is over.

Members of the energy clubs would be trained and sensitised by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). The club members would in turn train their friends, neighbours and family members.

The institute last week organised an orientation and sensitisation workshop, where 108 students and 14 teachers from 11 schools were trained on how to form energy clubs and start their activities on an early date. During the workshop, experts also talked about the various means of energy conservation.

According to Goswami, the programme provided an insight into various ways of mitigating energy crisis through energy conservation and its efficient use. It also provided guidance to teachers to maximise excellence in the energy education process.

Besides door-to-door campaigns and awareness programmes, the clubs will undertake energy audit in schools and homes. The TERI official said the energy audit would find out the amount of energy that a school or a house would need and the amount of energy wasted. It will also determine the different methods to conserve energy.

Under the BEACON programme, subject experts and the team from the institute will hold workshops and panel discussions for teachers and students in each city, where key issues regarding energy conservation would be discussed.

The institute will also organise competitions like caricature, poster/slogan writing, comic-script writing, street plays, debate, model making, essay writing and quiz to create awareness on energy conservation.

Mrinal Krishna Choudhury, additional director (in charge) of Assam Energy Development Agency, hoped that forming energy clubs would go a long way in securing judicious use of energy in cities like Guwahati.

“In the modern world, energy has become the basis of human life. Practically all activities today revolve around either the transfer or transformation of energy. But rapid depletion of natural resources makes a compelling case for the judicious use of energy,” he said.