Power System Operation and Economics:

Wide Area Monitoring and Control:

Photovoltaic Power Generation and Microgrid:

Projects:

1. PI of the project entitled Designing the Architecture and Operational Strategy for an On-Campus Microgrid
– Source: Hitachi India Limited; Amount: INR 20L; Year: 2012; Status: Completed
2. PI of the project entitled Comprehensive framework for the planning and energy management of a microgrid
– Source: Hitachi India Limited; Amount: INR 17L; Year: 2013; Status: Completed
3. PI of the project entitled Efficient Regulation of the Photovoltaic Power Output under the Partial Shading: A Paradigm Shift from MPPT to RPPT
– Source: DST-SERB; Amount: INR 33.79L; Year: 2022; Status: Ongoing

SPARC Lab at a Glance:

The SPARC laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities to carry out experimental research related to the real-time power system operation and the development of power electronic interfaces for energy harvesting from renewables. There are specially designed workbenches on which students can very coveniently develop their power electronic experimental setups. The laboratory has ample number of oscilloscopes, function generators, DC power supplies and power converters to perform different power electronic experiments. In addition, there are auto-transformers, regular transformers, variable inductors, battery stacks, load banks, which are extremely useful to do research in the area of the renewable power generation. With the available PV emulators, one can easily mimic the behaviour of a physical PV array while performing an experimental investigation. In order to perform the control of power converters, both embedded and CPU-based controllers are available. The research on the real-time monitoring and control of a power system is assisted by a high-end real-time simulator of the system dynamics. The laboratory also possesses multiple workstations to carry out large computational works without any burden. The computational facility of the laboratory is further going to be enhanced by procuring GPU systems. This will be specifically useful to develop ANN applications pertaining to the real-time monitoring of system conditions. Other upcoming research facilities are portable PV panels, pyranometers, LoRa communication gateways, smart energy meters and single-board computers.

Some Facilities of the SPARC Lab:

eMEGASIM Simulator:

The eMEGASIM simulator is an OPAL-RT product, which is useful to investigate the behavior of a dynamical. It is basically a high performance computing system with hardware interface for external systems. By using the parallel computation architecture of eMEGASIM simulator, the dynamics of large system can be simulated in a very short time. The greatest advatange of the eMEGASIM simulator is that it can control the flow of the simulation in synchronism with a real-world clock. The particular mode of simulation is referred to as the real-time simulation. The real-time simulation in the eMEGASIM simulator can further be carried with external hardware or software in the loop. There are versions of the hardware-in-loop simulation. The first option is to use a physical plant, but to implement the controllers inside the real-time simulator. The particular option is useful for generating control signals for power converters in power electronics related experiments. The other option is to simulate the plant inside the simulator, but to use physical control systems externally. The particular approach taken to study the performance of a power system stabilizer or a protection system in the power system related experiments. The physical and simulated systems interact with each other via the hardware ports of the eMEGASIM simulator. In the case of the software-in-loop simulation, the eMEGASIM simulator can exchange information with the programs running in external computers over an Ethernet connection. The software-in-loop simulation is useful to perform a realistic verification of the performance of a wide-area monitoring, control and protection system. The eMEGASIM simulator use the RT-LAB software for building the simulation model of a dynamical system. However, the RT-LAB software is capable of importing the simulation model of dynmical system directly from the MATLAB. The eMEGASIM simulator available with us has 48 analog output ports, 48 analog input ports, 192 digital output ports and 192 digital input ports. In addition, there are terminals to monitor signals in oscilloscopes. At a time, 48 different signals can be monitored. The entire simulator is divided into two target computers, each of which can be accessed individually or both can be combined together into a single system. Our eMEGASIM simulator also has an embedded FPGA board with which PWM pulses can be generated at the interval of 1 μs by using the RT-event toolbox.

PXI Controller:

The PXI controller from the National Instruments (NI) is a CPU based computing device that is widely used in the industry to implement the control systems for different plants. Apart from the control implementation, the PXI device is also useful for the data acquisition. The entire control or the data acquisition system can be developed in the LabVIEW platform, which needs to subsequently loaded in the PXI. Any such LabVIEW virtual instrument (VI) loaded into the PXI device runs in the real time while interacting with the external plants or devices via the hardware ports of the PXI controller. The SPARC laboratory uses the PXI device for the rapid control system prototyping, especially in connection with the development of maximum power point tracking or flexible power point tracking control for photovoltaic systems. The hardware interface of the available PXI controller comprises a large number of input and output ports. In specific, there are thirty two DC 10 Volt analog input ports, thirty two DC 10 Volt analog output ports, and one hundred sixty eight digital input/output ports. In addition, there are output ports to provide counter/timer, digitial triggering and clock signals. There is a specially designed port interfacing box with which external devices can be connected to the hardware ports of the PXI controller via screw terminal boards.

CompactRIO Controller:

The NI made CompactRIO controller is a more advanced controller device than the PXI controller. It is very rugged, compact and contains a FPGA module. Similarly to the PXI controller, the CompactRIO controller is used to implement control systems as well as for the data acquisition by using LabVIEW VIs. The added advantage of the CompactRIO controller is its ability to execute very fast control actions by using its embedded FPGA module. In addition, the I/O modules come with screw or spring terminals that makes it possible to directly connect an external device to the CompactRIO controller without using any separate terminal blocks. The CompactRIO controller of the SPARC laboratory is equipped with one DC 10 Volt 16-channel analog input module, two DC ± 60 Volt 4-channel analog input modules, one AC 400 Volt (RMS) 3-channel analog input module, one AC 50 Amp (RMS) 3-channel analog input module, two DC ± 10 Volt 4-channel analog output modules, and one 8-channel TTL digital input/output module. .

Solar PV Emulator:

The solar PV emulator is basically a programmable current source that can provide current output as per the V-I characteristic of a PV array. It is, practically, not always possible to perform experiments on physical PV arrays since it may be difficult to find a convenient space to install the required PV array. In addition, there is a very little flexibility to adjust the irradiance or temperature pattern for a physical PV array. The solar PV emulator eliminates all these burdens. Two ECOSENSE-made solar PV emulators are available in the SPARC lboratory of IIT Hyderabad. Each PV emulator has 4 output channels, each with a power rating of 400 W and voltage rating of 60 V. All the 8 chanels from the two emulators can be connected in the series parallel configuration. Each channel produces the V-I characteristic as per a pre-assigned look-up table. A total of 10 look-up tables can be saved in each simulator at a time. The SPARC laboratory has developed extensive computer codes to generate the look-up table for the V-I characteristic of a PV array of any configuration (i.e., series-parallel, total-cross-tied, bridge-linked, or honey-comb) under any arbitrary envirnmental condition. The V-I characteristic of a PV array can be generated with or without bypass and blocking diodes. Alrenatively, one can download the V-I characteristic of a PV array or panel directly from the online data source of the ECOSENSE. The availble solar PV emulator is being extensively used to perform experiments related to the maximum power point tracking and the flexible power point tracking.

Power Stacks:

The SPARC laboratory of IIT Hyderabad possesses six power stacks from the SEMIKRON. Two different types of power stacks are there. The first type of power stack is made of one 3-phase rectifier and one 3-phase 2-level 2 kHz inverter. The maximum DC link voltage is 700 Volt and the maximum inverter output current is 30 Amp. The rated ACs-side voltage is 415 Volt (L-L). There are four such power stacks. The another type of power stack comprises one 3-level diode-neutral clamped 20 kHz inverter. For this power stack, the DC-link voltage rating is 600 Volt and the inverter output current rating is 35 Amp. There are two power stacks of the second type. The power stacks are useful to perform experiments related to the microgrids or on the grid or AC-load connected photovoltaic power generation. Those can be used both at high and low power levels.

Opportunities:

• An intership position is available at the SPARC laboratory of the IIT Hyderabad for the Summer, 2022. The internship duration is two months. The intern will be paid an intership stipend of Rs. 5000 per month. Through this internship, the intern will get an exposure to the embedded controller programming via MATLAB and LabVIEW in connection with the control of the PV power generation. After the successful completetion, a letter of certification will be conferred to the intern. Interested candidates may directly write to me at my e-mail id. with their latest CVs.
  
  
• I am looking for a PhD student to carry out research in the area of the dynamic power regulation of a PV array. The candidate should have a good academic record, independent thinking capability, good writing skill, and great passion for the research. Interested candidates may apply against the forthcoming PhD advertisement by IIT Hyderabad in May, 20. The candidates must submit their applications via the official submission portal. However, they may also separately mail their CVs to me.
  
  

Services:

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