Chennai: St. Joseph's College of Engineering, Chennai has decided to carry out a pilot experiment to save electricity consumption on its campus using a concept conceived by its own students. The national award winning concept was devised by two of its Electrical and Electronics Engineering students, who had passed out last summer. The students S Priyadarshini and Aishwarya Vedham had developed a prototype for managing power load and saving up to 40 percent energy consumption in educational institutions using a centralized Programmable Logic Controller (PLC)-based system. This prototype enables automatic control of electrical switches in classrooms and laboratories in educational institutions. "We have decided to try out the PLC-based load management system in our own campus. Initially we will use it in two or three blocks and if it proves successful we will expand it to the rest of the campus. The pilot experiment will begin in a couple of months," said College Director, Babu Manoharan. Based on a pre-programmed schedule that is fed into the computer, lights and fans will automatically be switched off in a classroom when the students move out to attend laboratory sessions. When the students return to the classroom, the electricity supply will be switched on and the power will be switched off in the laboratory. The project was among the 10 concepts selected for the Innovative Student Projects Award 2009 (Bachelor's Level) at a countrywide competition conducted by the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) in New Delhi. The students of St. Joseph's College have bagged three of the 10 awards presented this year. Another award winning project is a rotary valve to operate the inlet and exhaust valve in a motorcycle engine to save fuel consumption, which was designed by two Mechanical Engineering students Nelvin Johny and Abel K Mathew. A non-invasive infant monitoring system using carbon dioxide sensor developed by three students Joannah Ranjini Gabriel, S Pratheeba and Sharanya was the other award winning project. According to College Principal Jolly Abraham, students of the institution have been bagging the awards instituted by the INAE for the past five years, except in 2007.