Symbiosis Institute of Technology (SIT) is one of the most sought-after colleges for Engineering in Maharashtra and across India. The Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering at SIT installed the Renewable Energy Lab from Ecosense for the ease of conducting research programs in Renewable Energy for their under-graduate and post-graduate students.
The Renewable Energy Lab consists of the following systems:
1. Solar PV Training and Research System
2. Solar Grid Tied Training System
3. Wind Energy Training System
4. Wind Turbine Emulator 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 Symbiosis Institute of Technology, Pune
2. Solar Grid Tied Training System
Ecosense’s Solar Grid Connected Training system enables user to learn about Solar Grid -tied technology. Using this system, a user gains knowledge of connecting an auxiliary grid (Solar PV) to the main grid, its essential components and transfer of power between the two grids. Using this system user gains knowledge in the following areas:
a.) Effect of different types of loads on Electrical Grid
b.) Effect of capacitance and inductance in Transmission lines
c.) Interfacing requirement of an auxiliary Grid to main grid
d.) Concept of anti-islanding
Ecosense installed Renewable Energy Lab at Symbiosis Institute of Technology, Pune
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.
Ecosense installed Renewable Energy Lab at Symbiosis Institute of Technology, Pune
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
4. Wind Turbine Emulator System
Wind turbine emulator mimics the behaviour of wind turbine for hardware level simulations. This system has a DC motor coupled with the Induction generator/ Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator, speed of which is controlled as per the speed reference calculated by solving the mathematical model of wind turbine. An induction generator is coupled to the DC motor and bidirectional inverter is connected to the terminals of the generator. Researcher can execute the mathematical models of their newly developed or modified wind turbine and can simulate the speed/power of profile of turbine on hardware environment directly for different wind speeds & pitch angle.
Why Emulator?
Exploiting wind energy and actively developing wind power generation have a great significance to solve the global energy and environmental crisis. Research and experiments on wind power generation system are difficult to carryout due to the limitation of severe conditions of wind farm and high cost. The wind turbine emulator system can substitute the actual wind turbine by calculating the output torque with the wind turbine torque model and rapidly producing a torque corresponding to the current wind condition. It not only has the same mechanical characteristic with the actual wind turbine, but also provides controllable equivalent wind energy. So, it can be used in the design, estimation and test application of the Wind Power Generation System which greatly improves the efficiency and validity of research development.
Advantages of Ecosense’s Wind Turbine Emulator
Ecosense’s Wind Turbine Emulator system enables user to do research in the field of Microgrid management, load side management, priority allocation to renewable sources etc. Ecosense’s Wind turbine Emulator is an open-source system where a user can reprogram, rewire, and revise the system to carry out their research goals. All the sources are independent of each other and research can also be carried out on each of the sources independently. Ecosense provides source file based on LabVIEW platform which can be easily modified as per the user’s liking. Ecosense appreciates and also provide an active support to users carrying out their research.
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