Ecosense established Renewable Energy Lab at Government College of Engineering, Karad


Ecosense established Renewable Energy Lab at Department of Electrical Engineering, Government College of Engineering, Karad, Maharashtra.


Government College of Engineering, Karad was established with a vision to emerge as a technical institution of national repute, driven by excellence in imparting value-based education and innovation in research to face global needs of profession.


The institute recently acquired three of the Renewable Energy Lab equipments by Ecosense:
1. Solar PV Training and Research System
2. Solar PV Grid Tied Training System
3. Wind Energy Training System


1. Solar PV Training and Research System:


Ecosense’s Solar PV Training and research system enables user to learn about Solar PV standalone technology. Using this system, a user gains knowledge in three fields of Solar PV Standalone system:


a.) Physics of Solar PV Panels — I-V and P-V characteristics, series and parallel connection of solar panels effect of irradiation, effect of temperature, effect of shadow, effect of tilting of panels, effect of geographical location etc.


b.) Components and Assembly of standalone system — use of blocking diode, use of bypass diode, use of solar charge controller, use of solar inverter, difference between MPPT and PWM charge controllers, AC load, DC load, battery charging/ discharging characteristics, assembly of several components and power flow calculations in each branch.


c.) Research in PV systems — Ecosense separately provides a research unit along with standalone experimental system. User can initiate research in the area of maximum power point tracking using this unit. It has provision of providing automatic as well as manual gate signals to charge controller. User can use his/ her own MPPT algorithm with any of the controller to provide manual gate signals.



Team with the Masters
Team with the Masters



2. Solar PV Grid Tied Training System


Ecosense’s Solar PV Grid Tied Training system is a compact version of an actual Solar PV Grid Tied power plant. The system enables user to study wiring and interconnections of different components involved in the system to develop basic understanding of working and operation of a Grid connected system. A user can understand underlying principles power electronics, its applications in power system and challenges like harmonics and grid synchronization by doing various experiments. The system also provides scope for further research.


The system utilizes a 500 Watt. solar PV panels installed at a rooftop which connects to the control unit installed in the lab. The control unit has a grid tied inverter and a measurement panel with various measuring instruments that calculate production and consumption of energy. If the total power produced by solar panels exceeds power consumed by loads then the extra power is transferred to the grid whereas is if power produced by solar panel is less than the power consumed then the loads will consume power from solar panels as well as the grid.


As several institutions don’t allow to feed the power generated by solar panels to their utility grid, Ecosense utilizes a virtual grid installed in the Grid box connected to control unit. The virtual grid acts as the utility grid for experimentations. User can switch between actual and virtual grid anytime.


A user can study the following characteristics using the system:
i.) Effect of different types of loads on Electrical Grid
ii.) Effect of capacitance and inductance in Transmission lines
iii.) Interfacing requirement of an auxiliary Grid to main grid
iv.) Concept of anti-islanding


3. Wind Energy Training System


Wind Energy Training System is a scaled down version of actual standalone Wind Turbine power plant. This system facilitates the students with working and configurable model of wind turbine. This system gives the insight about individual components and consequences of changing the operating points of any wind turbine defined in terms of wind speed and pitch angle. Students can learn concepts like I-V characteristic, cut-off, cut-in speed etc.


This system is developed such that it can work inside a closed laboratory with an artificial wind generating unit, which makes it weather proof. User can access and utilize the system capability at any time of the day without worrying about the actual climatic conditions. This system uses a big fan mounted on top of an Induction motor, the speed of which can be controlled by a Variable Frequency Drive. User can control the speed of motor which further controls the Wind speed using the Variable Frequency Drive. The variable wind speed prompts Wind Turbine to convert Wind Energy into Electrical energy and outputs three phase electrical output. The three-phase electrical output is connected with a three-phase rectifier which converts electrical output from AC to DC. The DC output is then further connected to a Charge controller and Battery. A DC load can be connected at Charge controller output. The Battery is further connected to a home inverter which provides clean useable AC electricity.


Advantages of Wind Energy Training System


Ecosense’s Wind Energy Training System enables students to learn about Wind Turbine technologies in easy and interactive manner. A user can study and understand about the following principles of Wind Energy Generation technology:


• Evaluation of efficiency of charge controller
• Evaluation of the cut-in speed of wind turbine experimentally
• Evaluation of Tip Speed ratio (TSR) at different wind speeds
• Evaluation of coefficient of performance of wind turbine
• Draw the turbine Power versus wind speed curve
• Draw the curve between TSR and coefficient of power
• Draw the power curve of turbine with respect to the rotational speed of rotor at fix wind speeds
• Demonstrate the power analysis at turbine output
• Demonstrate the power analysis at different branches of wind turbine energy system with AC load only
• Demonstrate the power analysis at different branches of wind turbine energy system with DC load only.


Team after Masters Training
Team after Masters Training



Masters Training Conducted


Ecosense also conducted a masters training program at Electrical Lab. This Masters training program was focused on educating and training the professors, scholars and technicians in Renewable Technology who will further train thousands of students and professionals to start their career or business in this very field.



Team during Masters Training
Team during Masters Training



Program Outcomes


The faculty members and students really enjoyed our two-day training programme and loved to work on our lab equipment. Professors will conduct experiments on the system to understand it more deeply and incorporate this lab set up as part of their regular curriculum.



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