St. Vincent Pallotti College of Engineering is an Autonomous Institution situated in Nagpur, Maharashtra, that recently installed Renewable Energy Labs from Ecosense.
The Renewable Energy Lab consists of the following equipments:
1. Solar PV Training and Research System
2. Solar Thermal 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.
Ecosense installed Renewable Energy Lab at St. Vincent Pallotti College of Engineering, Nagpur
2. Solar Thermal Training System
Solar Thermal Training System is a small model of real time water heating system and can be used for the characterization and different heat transfer analysis. Different aspects like efficiency, overall heat loss coefficient and heat removal factor and their corresponding calculations can be demonstrated with the help of this system. Special feature of this system is to perform experiments with different wind speeds, different fluid temperatures and different flow speeds.
This system can be divided in three parts viz. main collector system, measuring unit and artificial light unit. Main Collector system consists of a Flat Plate collector with temperature, flow and pressure sensors to measure temperature, flow and pressure of fluid. Measuring unit consists of a measurement panel displaying different parameters and Artificial light unit/ heat generating unit is a Halogen lamp panel to uniformly illuminate the flat plate collector inside a Lab.
Artificial Light facilitates a user to do his/her work without depending on climatic changes in the environment.
Modular and scalable design of the system allows user to move the system in and out of lab easily and conduct experiment with artificial lights as well as actual sunlight. Using the system, a user will be able to study and understand working and operation of a flat plate collector water heating system and its two modes of operation.
The system helps students in practical understanding of various technical parameters such as Overall heat loss coefficient, heat removal factor and efficiency at different varying input parameters like radiation, wind speed, inclination angle etc. The system has inbuilt sensors which measure parameters like pressure, temperature and flowrate placed at different locations in the system. The system has a datalogging device which automatically records and saves all the readings.
Ecosense installed Renewable Energy Lab at St. Vincent Pallotti College of Engineering, Nagpur
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
Ecosense installed Renewable Energy Lab at St. Vincent Pallotti College of Engineering, Nagpur
Program Outcome and The Way Forward
After Installation a masters training and demonstration session was conducted by Engineers of Ecosense. During this session, the complete scope, working and research possibilities of the system was discussed. The faculty members enjoyed the demo and training session. They along with students work on the equipment to conduct their research.