CHENNAI: IIT Madras and ABB India have formalised a project aimed to develop multi-village microgrid models for providing reliable electricity to remote areas in the country.
A MoU for this was signed at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in the presence of the President early this week. This was part of the Central government’s Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme.
The two partners would collaborate to develop a power management system to optimise the operation of multiple microgrids, with and without grid connection, while managing electricity supply to villages. This would enable the integration of individual solar PV rooftops to a village microgrid.
Sanjeev Sharma, CEO and Managing Director, ABB India, said UDAY would foster greater corporate-academia partnerships and contribute to solving the country’s issues. “In a huge and diverse country, it is important to design models of integration with power management and load balancing for proven microgrids technology with the existing grid infrastructure,” he added.
Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT-M, said: “With the country having set an ambitious target for solar energy generation, IIT Madras has been at the forefront in developing decentralised energy-efficient solar PV microgrid solutions tailored to meet urban, rural and off-grid power requirements.”
Under the project, microgrids of 20 to 100 kw capacity equipped with battery storage would be developed for which detailed studies and simulation of various system components along with related control and optimisation logics, protection criteria, monitoring and communication are being undertaken.