Industry Panel 1

Across the globe, emphasis on the reduction of carbon foot print from electricity generation has resulted in higher and higher penetration of the renewable energy (RE) into the grid. Solar and wind are widely accepted forms of renewable energy due to scalability and economically viable technology. However, RE in this form has its own limitations for higher penetrations due variability, uncertainties in forecasting and scheduling issues. Solar and wind power can add up to energy levels only and firm capacity required to meet the system peak demand and yet ensuring the grid stability and reliability does not exists.To mitigate the challenges of variability and uncertainty of the renewable generations, it is essential to add appropriately designed storage schemes. The storage system enables renewable generations to bridge the gap between the generation pattern of renewable sources of energy and the demand pattern. The storage system also helps in overcoming the network constraints at peak production of the RE and resolves the power evacuation issues.

Transportation being one of the biggest contributors to the urban pollution and greenhouse gases, the time has come to shift to the clean and green transportation system. Electric transportation system is one of the most clean among the alternatives and green, if the electricity is produced through the renewable energy resources, like hydro, wind and solar power. The growth in the electric transportation is taking pace with the technology enablers like storage batteries and global commitment towards the reduction in the carbon footprint via Kyoto Protocol agreement (1997) and Paris agreement (2016).

The session discusses the nexus among Renewable Energy (RE), Electric Vehicle (EV) & Energy Storage (ES). The nexus is incomplete without inclusion of information system which plays an important role of putting things together through advance control and management system. Few relevant aspects of IT based management systems will also be discussed.

Dr R. Nagaraja

Dr. R. Nagaraja is the founder and Managing Director of M/s. Power Research & Development Consultants Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, INDIA. He has vast experience of 30 years in the field of power system simulation and consulting.  His specialization includes Power System Analysis, Operations, Power Engineering Education and Power System Protection. He has conducted several power system studies and was a key contributor in the formulation of the wind energy grid code in India. He has worked extensively in the area of renewable energy integration and was instrumental in guiding the utilities to overcome the RE penetration issues.He is the architecture and chief mentor for the design and development of the MiPower – Power system analysis software package widely used by Electric utilities, Industries, Consultants and Educational Institutions for power system analysis and research purposes.  Dr. R. Nagaraja has worked in the smart grid sphere and has guided the development of tools as part of SCADA and EMS in power industry.Dr. R. Nagaraja is Senior Member of IEEE and currently chapter representative for Power Engineering Society (PES) for R-10 West. He has contributed to IEEE by holding various positions and also as Chair for IEEE PES, Bangalore Chapter. He has served in the capacity of Co-Chair in the first edition of World Utility Summit held in 2016 and as Chair in WUS-2018.

• Ir. Nirinder Singh Johl – Head (New Product Development), Distribution Division , Tenaga Nasional Berhad
• Dr.  Anshuman Tripathi, Program Director, Future Mobility Systems & power grids, Energy Research Institute @ NTU, Singapore

Nirinder,  has over 32 years of experience in the electricity utility industry, mainly in the Distribution, Energy Ventures and Corporate Communications Division and is finally heading the New Product Development Unit of Distribution. He has vast experience in various aspects of the energy industry and has spoken at various local and international forums.

Nirinder is presently the Head of the New Product Unit in Distribution Division within Tenaga Nasional Berhad , the unit  entrusted to spearhead the challenges with the ‘beyond meter’ market to propel Tenaga Nasional Berhad forward as the ‘Domestic Dominant and Regional Champion’ utility company in Asia.

Anshuman joined NTU in November-2012 and heads the Autonomous Vehicles, Electro-mobility and Grid connectivity areas of RD&D in the Energy Research Institute at NTU (ERI@N). His group supports the land transport authority of Singapore to enable clean and autonomous transport solutions for various transport applications starting from first/last mile solutions to mass public transport.

Before joining ERI@N he has spent many years in the industry. At General Electric, he formed electrical machine design competence in GE-global research delivering machine-converter solutions to GE transportation and GE healthcare systems. He also worked on wireless power transfer solutions for GE healthcare and GE-NBC.

He then joined Vestas wind power systems where he was instrumental in forming a 2 MW and 3 MW converter design group comprising of hardware, software and control groups. This group delivered solutions for V-90, V-112 and V-164 turbine platforms of Vestas.

Anshuman has research interests in grid connection of large and remote wind and solar farms, grid codes and compliance, power hardware in the loop simulations for power network designs, electrical drive train designs and hybrid Energy storage for stationary and mobile applications. He has 35 patents in the area of Energy storage, power systems, controls, electrical machines and over 24 journal publications. As head of Future Mobility Systems, he has spent last five years in developing autonomous vehicle platforms for public transport and industrial applications.

Anshuman has two start-up companies dealing with Energy Storage Systems and Autonomous Vehicles design solutions.