Roorkee (The Hawk): Prof. K.K. Pant, Director, IIT Roorkee, inaugurated two new labs - Renewable Grid Integration Laboratory and Green Hydrogen Laboratory at the Department of Hydro and Renewable Energy. HRED has developed these labs to ensure that the Department and IIT Roorkee continue to play a major role in reliable, resilient, and Atmanirbhar transition to a clean energy grid in India.
The director and Dy. Director also visited laboratories of HRED that are pursuing transformative research in all aspects of renewable energy, including hydropower, energy storage, solar energy, biomass energy, management of water bodies, and energy systems modelling. Prof Arun Kumar and Prof Sunil Singhal also showed other various labs to the Director - Prof. KK Pant and Dy. Director - Prof. UP Singh, and had discussions.
Addressing the faculty and students, Prof. Pant said, "Establishment of the labs aims to significantly reduce carbon emissions and increase the use of renewable energy sources and envisages making India a global hub for green hydrogen production and export. Achieving net zero carbon goals requires decarbonization of the electric grid. Variable renewable energy will be deployed at large scale to develop resilient and renewable energy-based power systems."
Prof. Mukesh Singhal, Head HRED, said that the Department is geared up and committed to carrying out research and development work in all areas of renewable energy in a sustainable manner. We already have laboratories for this purpose, and adding these two labs will strengthen the department's capabilities.
Regarding the objective and capabilities of the Renewable Grid Integration Laboratory, Prof. Himanshu Jain, Faculty Incharge of the lab, said that the lab had been developed to pursue cutting-edge research in ensuring the high reliability and resilience of the renewable energy-dominated electric grid of India. It is equipped with hardware and software to pursue research in areas including stability analysis of India's grid, pumped storage hydropower, development of inverter controls, cybersecurity, and wireless charging of electric vehicles. He also mentioned that one research fellow, six PhD students, including one PMRF, and five M.Tech students are using the laboratory to pursue research in grid integration of renewable energy.
Prof. Amit Bhosale, Faculty Incharge of Green Hydrogen Laboratory, highlighted the significance of the lab to envisage developments in electrochemistry, viz., fuel cells and electrolysers. The laboratory is also aligned towards catering to the goals of the prestigious National Hydrogen Mission launched by Govt. of India recently. Necessary equipment and software are also installed to research domains such as stack development, contact resistance management, and hydrogen production. Currently, the laboratory is handled by an Institute Post-Doctoral Fellow, 6 PhD students including one PMRF, 4 M.Tech. Students. The Department of Hydro and Renewable Energy (HRED) at IIT Roorkee was established in 1982 and will complete its Ruby Jubilee this year. The vision of the Department is to tap the huge renewable energy potential available in the country and build up the expertise and power generation capacity through research and development in hydropower and other renewable energy sources.
