It is well established that access to energy is closely linked with socioeconomic development. India houses the largest share of the world's population deprived of electricity with about 237 million people lacking access (International Energy Agency). At the same time, in India, many households that do have access to electricity lack an uninterrupted and quality power supply. A recent study conducted by the Council for Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) across six states (Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Odisha), found that about 50% of the households had no electricity despite having a grid connection. This indicates that there is an immediate need to address the quality, affordability, and reliability of the power supply in addition to extending the grid footprint. © 2013 IEEE.

Ashok Jhunjhunwala

Department of Electrical Engineering

Electric power systems

DC micro-grid

GRID CONNECTIONS

INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY

power supply

SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

West Bengal

Electric power transmission networks

IIT Madras is a public technical and research university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1959, it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance.

IIT Madras has been ranked as the top engineering institute in India for four years in a row by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the MHRD

It currently offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees across 16 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. About 596 faculty belonging to science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and industrial consultancy.

IIT Madras

Solar-dc Microgrid for Indian Homes: A Transforming Power Scenario

IEEE Electrification Magazine

A desert cooler typically is a blower fan that sucks air through a moistened surface to achieve a drop in inlet air temperature. A pump is used to circulate water from a lower tank to the evaporative pads working with a swing louver motor for directing the air automatically. The power consumption of the evaporative air cooler is primarily in single phase induction motor (SPIM) used for fan motor [1, 2]. To lower this power consumption, a brushless DC machine and its circuitry were designed and used. This is powered also by PV panel and batteries. The power consumption comparative study was carried out on SPIM and BLDC machines at three speeds. The outcome of the study shows 39.3% of power saved on with BLDC machine air coolers. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018.

Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering

Efficiency gain using DC microgrid and BLDC machine-based 48 V air cooler

As India tries to add significant renewables to its coal-dominated energy mix, the problem of intermittent generation associated with renewables, is likely to be a problem. Even though battery prices have been falling rapidly, any serious grid-level storage will push up the price of electricity beyond the affordability limit for a large section of Indian people. The answer is in developing techniques, practices and policies, which enables the consumers to carry out load-management in response to grid-power availability. If grid-power is surplus, the customer uses grid to the maximal extent, but when grid-power is in deficit, it uses it to minimal extent. This paper focuses on commercial multi-storied buildings and discusses how power-systems can be designed for them to respond to the grid-availability without affecting the working and life-style of people in the building to a significant extent. It proposes use of roof-top solar and DC power-line within buildings along with DC-powered appliances to significantly save energy. It incorporates battery-storage and chilled-water storage, which coupled with use of DC motors or variable frequency drives, can help building cut its load to almost 50% or even less during grid-power shortage and draw power more than its load during surplus situation. The paper goes beyond the concept and discusses actual implementation being carried out today. It also discusses policies which will accelerate deployment of such designs benefiting both the customer as well as the grid-supply. © 2016 IEEE.

2016 1st International Conference on Sustainable Green Buildings and Communities, SGBC 2016

Energy optimization and cost management in multi-storied green complexes

This paper presents an innovative approach to tackle the crisis of electrification of off grid and near off grid homes by using the innovative Inverterless Solar DC system. Improved efficiency, lower cost and robust design makes it a very attractive solution. Inverterless system is not only cost effective to power off grid homes but as and when grid becomes available, it can be seamlessly integrated. For homes which are connected to the grid but face load shedding, this system provides uninterrupted power. This paper presents the technical design details of this system. © 2016 IEEE.

Inverterless Solar- DC system design for off- grid and near off-grid Indian homes

According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency [1], although India is the second most populous country on earth, it ranks far behind other countries in terms of per capita electricity consumption and carbon footprint. As shown in Table 1, India is well below the world average in both per capita electricity consumption and carbon footprint indices. However, with an ambitious plan for rapid growth and economic development, India is poised to quickly increase its carbon footprint and become a major contributor to preventing global climate change. © 2014 IEEE.

IEEE Power Electronics Magazine

Electrifying India: Using solar dc microgrids

Various statistics indicate that many of the parts of India, especially rural and island areas have either partial or no access to electricity. The main reason for this scenario is the immense expanse of which the power producing stations and the distribution hubs are located from these rural and distant areas. This emphasizes the significance of subsidiarity of power generation by means of renewable energy resources. Although in current energy production scenario electricity supply is principally by AC current, a large variety of the everyday utility devices like cell phone chargers, computers, laptop chargers etc. all work internally with DC power. The count of intermediate energy transfer steps are significantly abridged by providing DC power to mentioned devices. The paper also states other works that prove the increase in overall system efficiency and thereby cost reduction. With an abundance of solar power at disposal and major modification in the area of power electronic conversion devices, this article suggests a DC grid that can be used for a household in a distant or rural area to power the aforementioned, utilizing Solar PV. A system was designed for a household which is not connected to the main grid and was successfully simulated for several loads totaling to 250 W with the help of an isolated flyback converter at the front end and suitable power electronic conversion devices at each load points. Maximum abstraction of operational energy from renewable sources at a residential and commercial level is intended with the suggested direct current systems.

Journal	Data powered by TypesetIEEE Electrification Magazine
Publisher	Data powered by TypesetInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISSN	23255897
Open Access	No