• High Reliability DC-DC Converter for Integrating Battery with Low Voltage DC System
  Funding Agency: FAST Track Scheme, Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB)
  Duration: 3 Years (2014-2017)
  Status: Active
• Smart Power Electronic Converters for Renewable Integration
  Funding Agency: INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship Grant, Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India
  Duration: 5 Years (2013-2018)
  Status: Active
• Power Electronic Converters for Interfacing Solar Photovoltaics with Low Voltage DC System
  Funding Agency: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur
  Duration: 2 Years (2013-2015)
  Status: Completed
• Development of Scaled-down Laboratory Prototype of Static Voltage Regulator (SVR)
  Funding Agency: Emerson Network Power (I) Pvt. Ltd.
  Duration: 1 Years (2014-2015)
  Status: Completed

Condition Monitoring of Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors:

Patent Application Pending

Existing single phase direct grid feeding solar PV inverter are based on voltage source inverter topologies. Aluminum electrolytic capacitors (AEC) are used as an energy storage element in these inverters, to limit second harmonic voltage ripple to a low value and to maximize the PV power extraction efficiency (PEE). AECs are popularly used due to their high energy density as compared to other capacitors. However, AEC degrades due to its electrolyte loss with time, which leads to rise in equivalent series resistance (ESR) and fall in capacitance value. Further, the rate of loss in electrolyte increases with temperature. This leads to increase in magnitude of ripples in PV voltage with ageing. This reduces the PEE, which results in less power availability from solar PV system. Increase in voltage ripple could also lead to failure of inverter.
To avoid this, we have developed online techniques to monitor the health of AEC in solar PV inverters. These techniques would provide timely indication of the capacitor (AEC) failure, thereby avoiding downtime of the solar PV system.

High Reliable Solar Inverter

Indian Patent, Appl. No. 2912/MUM/2011
Life of solar PV panels is more than 20 years. However, inverters are less reliable and typically have 3-7 years of life span, beyond which high failure rate of inverters is expected. Failures of power electronic converters are mainly due to the following components: (i) Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors (AEC), and (ii) Switching semiconductor devices.
We have proposed a high reliable solar inverter topology. It is based on current source converter, which uses inductors to store energy instead of AEC, thereby increasing the operational life. The proposed inverter is a transformer-less pulse width modulated (PWM) current source inverter. Further, this inverter offers inherent voltage boost feature, which avoids the use of additional dc-dc converter in case of low voltage solar PV string. This improves the conversion efficiency due to single stage conversion.

Dynamic Voltage Restorer

Technology Transferred
Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) is a custom power device used in electrical distribution system for power quality improvement. The main application of DVR is for voltage compensation of sensitive loads against voltage disturbances like sag and swell in distribution lines. A 5kVA, IGBT based, digitally controlled single phase DVR is designed and developed. It is capable of regulating the load voltage within 2% of its nominal value (230V) for grid voltage variation of 185V to 265V.

High Reliable Solar Inverter

Indian Patent, Appl. No. 2912/MUM/2011

• Amit Meena, Shirazul Islam, Sandeep Anand, Yogesh Sonawane and Sanjay Tungare, "Design and Control of Single Phase Dynamic Voltage Restorer," 7th National Power Electronics Conference, NPEC'2015, Mumbai, India, Dec. 2015
• Rashmi Shukla, Md. Waseem Ahmad, Nikunj Agarwal, Sandeep Anand, "Accelerated Ageing of Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitor," 7th National Power Electronics Conference, NPEC'2015, Mumbai, India, Dec. 2015
• Md. Waseem Ahmad, Abhinav Arya and S. Anand, "An Online Technique For Condition Monitoring Of Capacitor In PV System," IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology, ICIT'2015, Seville, Spain, March 2015
• Abhinav Arya, Md. Waseem Ahmad and S. Anand, "Online Monitoring of Power Extraction Efficiency for Minimizing Payback Period of Solar PV System," IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology, ICIT'2015, Seville, Spain, March 2015
• Shirazul Islam and S. Anand, "Eigenvalue Sensitivity Analysis of Microgrid with Constant Power Loads," IEEE Power Electronics, Drives and Energy Systems Conference, PEDES'2014, Mumbai, India, Dec. 2014
• S. Anand and B.G. Fernandes, "Power Management Control for Solar Photovoltaic Based DC System," 40th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IECON'2014, Dallas, TX, USA, Oct.-Nov. 2014
• S. Anand, Saikrishna Kashyap and B.G. Fernandes, "Transformer-less Grid Feeding Current Source Inverter for Solar Photovoltaic System," IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2014
• S. Anand and B.G. Fernandes, "Reduced Order Model and Stability Analysis of Low Voltage DC Microgrid," IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol.60, no.11, pp.5040-5049, Nov. 2013
• S. Anand, B.G. Fernandes and Josep Guerrero, "Distributed Control to Ensure Proportional Load Sharing and Improve Voltage Regulation in Low Voltage DC Microgrids," IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 28, Issues 4, pp. 1900-1913, April 2013
• S. Anand, K. Chatterjee and B.G. Fernandes, "DC Voltage Controller for Asymmetric Twin Converter Topology Based High Power STATCOM," IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 60, Issue 1, pp. 11-19, Jan 2013
• S. Anand and B.G. Fernandes, "Multilevel Open-ended Transformer Based Grid Feeding Inverter for Solar Photovoltaic Application," 38th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IECON'2012, Montreal, Canada, Oct. 2012
• S. Anand, R.S. Farswan, B. Mangu and B.G. Fernandes, "Optimal Charging of Battery using Solar PV in Standalone DC System," IET Conference on Power Electronics Machines and Drives, PEMD'2012, Bristol, UK, March 2012
• S. Anand and B.G. Fernandes, "Steady State Performance Analysis for Load Sharing in DC Distributed Generation System," 10th International Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineering, EEEIC'2011, Rome, May 2011
• S. Anand and B.G. Fernandes, "Modified Droop Controller for Paralleling of DC-DC Converters in Standalone DC System," IET Journal of Power Electronics, Vol. 5, Issue 6, pp. 782-789, July 2012
• S. Anand, R.S. Farswan and B.G. Fernandes, "Unique Power Electronics and Drives Experiment Bench (PEDEB) to Facilitate Learning and Research," IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol. 55, Issues 4, pp. 573-579, Nov. 2012
• S. Anand and B.G. Fernandes, "Optimal Voltage Level for DC Microgrids," 36th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IECON'2010, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Nov. 2010
• S. Anand, B.G. Fernandes and K. Chatterjee, "A New 4-level Open-Ended Transformer based STATCOM for High Power Applications," 36th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IECON'2010, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Nov. 2010

1. Waseem Ahmad
2. Shirazul Islam
3. Bhavna Rathore
4. Varsha Shukla

1. Arun Singh
2. Nikunj Agarwal
3. Saurav Roy Chaudhary
4. Maguluri Avinash
5. Nishant Kashyap
6. Soumya Thomas
7. Rajender Nune