The Chairman and Managing Director of the public sector Power Grid Corporation of India will inaugurate a four-day conference on ‘Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Asia – 2013’ that will be held in Bangalore between November 10 and 14. The conference, which is being organised by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), is meant to discuss the challenges in the monitoring, operation, control and protection of large interconnected systems and to arrive at techniques and solutions to avoid major blackouts in the system.
The conference begins with a ‘tutorial’ session on four major topics: wind energy management systems (by Dr Jens Madesn, Vattenfall, Denmark), Future Distribution Systems (by John McDonald, GE Energy, USA), Wide Area Monitoring Systems (by Dr Vahid Madani, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, USA) and Large Grid Disturbances and Mitigation (by Dr Anil Kuklkarni, IIT, Bombay.)
“Given that several components of such a Smart Gird are still in a demonstration phase, it is required to bring together different stakeholders to one forum to discuss the challenges ahead and to come out with action plans to have these smart power delivery systems,” says a background note from the organisers.
The conference will also discuss the ways to enhance the capabilities of the existing grid in accommodating distributed energy resources like solar photovoltaic systems, wind and other resources which are intermittent in nature and which will become more pervasive in the future. The conference is being supported by the American solar module manufacturer, First Solar, and GE, apart from the Centre for Wind Energy Technology, and Power System Operation Corporation, a subsidiary of the Power Grid Corporation of India.