The Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering organized a symposium on ‘New & Renewable Energy Resources’ on 23rd April 2016, aimed at building the awareness and interest among the students towards renewable energy research.
The regional office, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) also participated in the symposium. A highly informative talk was delivered by the chief guest Dr. Dharma Ranjan Das, Advisor to the Govt. of India, MNRE. He informed about the different Solar Photovoltaic cell projects undertaken by Govt. of India. He stated that central govt. has set a target of 165 GW of power to be achieved by the year 2022, out of which 100 GW is to be harnessed from solar energy, 60 GW from wind energy and 5 GW from hydropower. Further he gave a detailed description on the roof top PV cell projects in India. He added, “Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic power plants installed in 1000 residential buildings in Guwahati is capable of generating 1 MW of power from solar energy every day, which would be very essential to meet the peak load demand of electricity in the city.”
It is noteworthy to mention that MNRE has launched the scheme of rooftop solar photovoltaic systems with a subsidy of 70 percent on the benchmark cost of the system for the North Eastern region. “There are 130 million houses with proper concrete roofs in the country with total potential installation of 25,000 MW capacity rooftop solar power plants”, said Dr. Das.
Another invited speaker Mr. P. Handique, Retd. CGM, ASEB, enlightened the participants with his informative session, focused on hydroelectric power plants and their concerned socio-economic aspects. “Hydro-power has the highest potential in North East India compared to any other renewable energy.” Mr. Handique said. He added that, to eliminate the power scarcity in North East India it is very much important to look into the Hydro power generation. He told that without knowing the ground reality and technical background we should not oppose the hydro-electric infrastructure.
The last talk was delivered by Mr. Jesif Ahmed, Assistant Professor of EEE Department where he gave a detailed description on wind energy. Right from the basics, he elaborated controlled Wind Energy Conversion (WCS) system with various wind generator models and explained the strategic technical parameters and calculations. By providing a number of interesting videos, he assured that everybody can make a wind generator without much effort.
Further he informed the participants about current global renewable energy status, with a special insight into Indian electricity sector status, particularly the wind energy sector. “There is no planet B right now, let’s make this one better. Fossil fuels are still a dominant way of generating electricity and for the industrial world to manufacture goods, creating too much carbon footprints and polluting the only planet we have – our home! By joining forces with the global wind power community, we shall add our voice to thousands who believe that a cleaner, more sustainable world is possible”, Mr. Ahmed appealed.
With the successful commencement of this second symposium on “New & Renewable Energy Resources”, the department of EEE has set a target of becoming a key role player in the frontiers of renewable energy sector in the coming days.