Roorkee (The Hawk): The research team brings the 'Jury Award of the 2022 IEEE Smart Cities Award' for the D-SIDES project to the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IIT Roorkee). Prof. N. P. Padhy, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Roorkee, leading the D-SIDES project (funded by DST, India), aims to build future grids that are economical, dependable, and powered by decentralized renewable energy sources.
The institute has already installed solar PV systems in 36 different sites across campus with a total amount of 2.8 MW of solar power capacity. A self-sufficient model under the D-SIDES project aims for a green campus that will decrease fossil fuel consumption and savings for future generations. The entire model is based on the replication of smart city technologies for the benefit of society and to set the global standard in this regard by serving as a neutral broker of information amongst industry, academic, and government stakeholders.
IIT Roorkee distribution network depends on a conventional grid system. To make a self-reliant distribution network, IIT Roorkee has been performing pioneering work in recent years to develop an eco-friendly campus utilizing renewable resources. Smart grid technology must be integrated into the existing grid infrastructure. The goal is to build a self-sufficient, zero-emission green campus. Furthermore, implementing the energy storage system would allow for increased renewable energy utilization while simultaneously lowering the carbon impact.
Prof. K K Pant, Director, IIT Roorkee, empathized, "The mission was to recognize the authoritative voice and leading source of credible technical information and educational content within the scope of smart cities identified. IIT Roorkee will facilitate and promote the collaborative and individual work of its Member Societies regarding smart city technology following functional and application domains within the context of urban infrastructure systems."
Explaining the working of the model, Prof. N. P. Padhy, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Roorkee, said, "Today, as solar installations proliferate, integration at the distribution level is being accompanied by significant challenges in the distribution network. To address issues that might occur during large-scale integration of renewable energy sources and reach a component level analysis will be carried out in the real distribution network utilizing Power Hardware in Loop (PHIL) simulation."
The ADMIRE lab at Electrical Engineering Department, IIT Roorkee, is equipped with RTDS, Opal-RT, and FPGA controllers, a real-time study of weak distribution networks with solar integration, and implementation of a monitoring system. An advanced storage management network is designed to optimize the selection, sizing, and placement of distributed storage systems while taking network configuration and solar generation into account to improve the efficacy and reliability of the distribution network with the least amount of investment.