Grid management with better low-cost generational technologies is the need of the hour with the share of renewable energy poised to increase significantly, said speakers at the two-day seminar organised by Confederation of Indian Industry on ‘Energising South India’ which concluded here on Saturday.
During a session on grid integration and micro grids with reference to renewable energy, K. Venugopal, co-chairman of the power, renewable energy and infrastructure sub-committee of CII, South India, said power evacuation was the real challenge in renewable energy and advanced micro grid systems should be developed and refined to suit the needs of the sector.
Abhilash Nair of ABB India Limited said a micro grid could broadly be defined as ‘a smart system with the features of generation, energy storage and uninterrupted supply.’ He said ABB was manufacturing solar inverters and other storage devices for supplying to micro grid systems. The devices offer wide range of technical solutions for better grid integration.
Advisor of Suzlon Group N.S.M. Rao gave details on developing hybrid evacuation systems for solar and wind energy and pointed out that his company had developed grid-friendly wind energy turbines.
Senior vice-president of Commercial Greenko Group Suman Kumar, said mega solar power projects could be built with more grid integration. He said his company had taken up such projects in the solar parks coming up in Andhra Pradesh and Rajahsthan and called for developing green energy corridor.
Business head of Solar Rooftop PV Systems of the L&T group Harshita S. Kumar, said separate energy storage parks should be set up as part of green energy corridors.
General manager of GE Energy Connections Amitabh Singhal said solar-diesel hybrid power solutions could be thought of for rural India to optimise the price of power.
B. Ashok Reddy, president of corporate affairs, Infra Cyient Limited, said roof-top solar power generation would be the real game-changer.
The seminar also had separate sessions on disruptive technologies-power and renewable energy, managing rooftop solar and new opportunities in storage solution. Among others, CII chairman on Energising South-2017 S. Chandrasekhar, First Solar Country head Sujoy Ghosh and senior director of LM Wind Power Blades Arul Shanmugasudaram spoke.