Smart Grids Managed Renewable Power for Sustainability
Now a days everywhere major concern for sustainability targets are linked with usage of energy that too particularly electrical energy, as conventional power sector and industries are objectively pointed out for GHG emissions and to highlight it more future needs of fuel (for EV’s) will be added burden on further increase in production of electricity to meet the demands of future.
Mostly the ecologist suggests the production of household green energy through renewables for catering the present and future demands of electricity as Energy and fuel commodity for domestic and urban and rural transportation.
However major challenges for adopting renewable energy generation on mass scale in country like India will again result in further issues like power evacuation and transmission of power at large scale.
Earlier home based small solar PV system uses battery storage power with inverter application and that was very tedious to handle along with added problems like harmonics and switching problems. Now with new technologies like Grid tied system a direct conversion of generated DC power to AC Power and connection through net metering to state utility power is possible where consumer can take credit for the supplied power to grid and may be charged for the power used from grid.
But there are many hurdles in such system due to policy difference at every state so people are not getting encouraged to adopt solar power.
So smart micro grids may be solution in Indian context where within the same locality there is huge difference in residential pattern as some buildings are too tall and affect the potential of PV due to shadow effect etc. to other building. similarly roof area may not be equal and usage pattern may not be same, but if we encourage community based Smart grids like interlinked mesh of various rooftop PV system that will lead to maximum utilization of solar generation without affecting the main grid and power evacuation.
Advantages of such Micro grids
- Less dependance on Utility for commercial Power Transactional issues.
- Single Point charging stations so useful for multi storied residential complex.
- Many high energy consumption points such as pumping, garden lighting, community centers, sports area within the premises have access to economical power.
- Increase in system stability and less harmonics due to lesser charging points.
- Reduce burden on transmission, distribution utilities for load evacuation infrastructures.
In future when sustainable habitat will be major focus area, micro grids will help in reducing the demand of electricity from utility perspective and thus will contribute in achieving carbon neutrality and sustainability targets as very power will be generated and utilized within the community hence less power plants, transmission and distribution points and very low technical losses.
About the Author
Prashant R. Nene
BE Electrical, M. Tech Energy
Sustainability and Energy Management Consultant with 18 Years of Experience in Energy domain Research Scholar for Smart Grid Management
E-mail:[email protected]