Smart concept for a stable energy supply
India’s economy has constantly grown over the past years, with the result that the demand for energy has also increased dramatically in the southern Asia country. With an aging infrastructure and daily power outages, the growing demand for electricity poses major challenges for the energy market in India.
Furthermore, access to electricity is not equal across the country. Only 15 percent of the population is impacted by unstable power grids because not every village has 24-hour access. India is now stepping up efforts to find a solution, relying on new concepts to create a stable supply of energy while increasingly drawing on renewable energy sources.
The Stabiliz-Energy project illustrates how to find an efficient way out of the instable supply situation while taking into account climate protection. In order to meet this challenge, fortiss worked together with project partners in Europe and India to install a 400V low-voltage distributed power grid on the campus of Amrita University in Kerala.
Under the leadership of the fortiss Architectures and Services for Critical Infrastructures field of competence, a reliable 13-node micro grid was created that is capable of reconfiguring itself in case of an interruption. Part of the energy is drawn from renewable sources.
A number of aspects were crucial to the success of the project, which can be summed up as follows: the design of the distributed grid, a robust communications infrastructure and an intelligent electricity meter. The software solution developed by fortiss follows a similar, decentralized architecture concept.The existing software architecture operates with very few modified system components at different levels, from the actual electricity meter and the aggregators, to the energy control room. By using this approach, the data can be processed, prepared and integrated at different levels. If a node temporarily fails, the tasks can be assumed by one of the other nodes in the grid.
The simulation environment, which was enhanced and adapted to the geographic environment, represents a highlight of this project. This tool can be used to test application scenarios such as electricity and voltage fluctuations, grid damage or electricity theft, and then transfer the corresponding solutions to the field installation.
The Stabiliz-Energy project provides a smart and mature concept for taking a step closer to a stable power grid in India. If a power line breaks down for instance, the distributed network can not only detect the failure, but localize and isolate it.
By activating alternative connections between the nodes, the system is in a position to reconfigure itself in order to restore the supply when possible. In addition, each of the 13 nodes can be centrally or individually monitored and controlled with a mobile application.
This project was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).
The primary objectives of the INDO INDIGO initiative are fostering collaboration between India and Europe and carrying out joint research projects with the involvement of industry partners.
