IESA at Intersolar India

As part of its maiden technical tour IESA conducted special energy storage panel discussions at the 6th Renewable Energy India Expo (7^th November 2012, New Delhi) and Inter Solar India conference (8^th November 2012, Mumbai)  

IESA had co-ordinated with two leading conferences Viz., Intersolar India and 6^th Renewable Energy India 2012 Expo, where the select delegates and IESA members participated in interactive panel discussions on Energy Storage and Microgrids. Audience got an opportunity to learn from their valuable insights during these sessions. 

Intersolar India was conducted for the fourth time at the Bombay exhibition grounds. India's largest 200 exhibitors from 17 countries presented their products, solutions and services in an exhibition space covering 20,000 square meters. Fifty-four percent of the exhibitors in 2012 came from India, with 27% from Europe and 19% from across the rest of the globe. This year’s top exhibitor countries were India, Germany, China, the U.S. and Spain, with a total of 7296 visitors attending Intersolar India. The accompanying Intersolar India Conference, which began the day prior to the exhibition on November 5, 2012 in the Leela Kempinski Hotel, Mumbai, also concluded on November 8, 2012 and welcomed 650 attendees. Throughout the four days of the conference, 100 speakers explored the latest industry topics surrounding technologies, markets and financing. Intersolar India showcased the entire solar industry value chain in 2012. In the breakdown of exhibitors, 86% specialized in photovoltaics, 3% exhibited products and services connected to solar thermal technologies and 11% brought solutions from both fields to Intersolar India.

IESA conducted two sessions, the first being a series of presentations on balance of systems and energy storage, and the second being a presentation by Dr. Rahul Walawalkar on Energy Storage. The details of the sessions are as listed below.

BALANCE OF SYSTEM & ELECTRICITY STORAGE

Presentations given in the course of this session shed light on aspects related to long-term efficiency, reliability, and durability of installed PV systems, both grid-tied and off-grid, determined by various components that constitute the Balance of Systems (BoS). Furthermore, speakers presented applications designed to facilitate electricity storage and shared the latest technological progress achieved in these fields.

11:15am - 11:20am

Welcome and Introduction
Aditya Jammi, Director, India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), India

All the speakers were introduced and a brief introduction about balance of systems and energy storage was given during this introductory session.

11:20am - 11:45am

PV Hybrid System Technology to Reduce Fuel Consumption of Diesel Power Supply
Volker Wachenfeld, Executive Vice President Sales & Technology Off-Grid Systems, SMA Solar Technology AG, Germany

The presentation detailed SMA’s approach on the PV-Diesel hybrid systems and started with an introduction of the 7 key drivers, viz., reduction of variable costs, reduction of CO2 emissions, reduction of Genset operation times, energy independence, planning security, security of supply and social aspects. Describing the solution offering of SMA, it was detailed how integration of PV into a Genset plant provides significant savings, but the requirements need to be considered, and how the fuel save controller solution enables intelligent communication between PV, Gensets and Loads. The merits of this solution offering were elaborated and SMA’s own track record was showcased in the later part of this presentation. 

11:45am - 12:10pm

Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries for Solar PV
Dr. Frank Diehl, Director Global Sales, Gildemeister Energy Solutions, Germany

Dr. Diehl introduced the Cellcube, which is Gildemeister’s Vanadium Redox flow battery for PV, wind power, biogas or parallel operation with the grid. Various benefits of the Vanadium Redox Flow battery were also illustrated, like long lifespan, electrolyte reusability, scalability, cyclisation and low maintenance through examples. As a case study, the installation with SunCarrier Omega at Bhopal was presented, which is India’s first commercial Net Zero energy building.  A Net Zero Energy Building is highly energy efficient and produces at least as much energy over the course of a year as it consumes. Dr. Diehl explained the process of this successful installation:

• Deployment of a renewable energy generator in the form of Solar PV system.
• Incorporate demand-side energy efficiencies.
• Integration of a large capacity energy storage system, the Cellcube FB 10-100.
• Extension of its energy generation capacity in keeping with the anticipated growth in occupancy of the building. 

 

12:10pm - 12:35pm

Grid Connected and Microgrid Applications
Aditya Jammi, Director, India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), India

An introduction to the Microgrids was first given and key advantages like island mode operation, improved power quality through on demand islanding and re-synchronization, local balancing of variable generation sources, reactive power management, etc., were illustrated. This was followed by a broad classification of Microgrids into commercial / industrial, community, remote, and military / security grids. The challenges were highlighted in the next section where issues like stability and power quality in islanding mode, transitions from interconnected to islanding mode, instability owing to lack of storage components and high resistance to reactance ratio of LV networks, etc., were brought to the fore. The value proposition was arrived at considering the parameters in the previous sections and various energy storage options for grid applications were highlighted.

12:35pm - 1:00pm

Increasing Availability & Electrical Safety in Photovoltaic Power Plants
P. K. Bhattacharyya, Director, Bender India Pvt. Ltd., India

Bender’s approach to increase electrical safety and availability were showcased in this presentation, and various solutions for detection of possible electrical hazards at an early stage, ensuring personnel and equipment safety, risk mitigation and management, preventive action to ensure high installation availability, and efficient management of installation data were showcased.  Specific onus was on the Insulation Fault Location System and its merits were highlighted.

ENERGY STORAGE

November 8, 2012

1:00pm - 3:30pm

• Dr. Rahul Walawalkar, Vice President Emerging Technologies and Markets, Customized Energy Solutions & Executive Director, India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), India

 

A comprehensive and interactive session was conducted by Dr. Rahul Walawalkar about the relevance and role of Energy Storage in India. The presentation then showcased various Energy Storage options for Grid applications and the emergence of various EES technologies. Various applications like peak shaving, load levelling, power quality and reliability improvements and wind firming were all illustrated with examples and various Smart Grid demonstration projects with Energy Storage across North America were shown. Frequency regulation and integration of advanced wind forecasting and scheduling, Microgrids, and other relevant topics were also discussed during this interaction. The session closed with Dr. Walawalkar giving and introduction to the India Energy Storage Alliance and how IESA is helping bridge the gap from concept to reality in the Indian EES market.

These events were conveniently scheduled during the following week after the technical tour so that delegates could utilize the additional networking opportunity, having had a first-hand brief on the opportunities and EES landscape for doing business in India.