The Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Coimbatore campus organized a four-day faculty development program on Modelling and Simulation of Power System Components during July 8 – 11, 2013 in association with the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE).

“The contemporary power system is a complex electrical network. Planning and operation of such a system under existing conditions, as well as its improvement and future expansion requires an in-depth understanding of the system,” explained the organizers.

“All analysis in engineering sciences starts with the formulation of appropriate models. Models provide the foundation for all power system studies,” they added.

“Calculation of operating limits, planning studies for assessment of new generation and load growth, performance assessments of system integrity protection schemes – all of these depend on an approximate mathematical modeling of the generation, transmission and distribution system components,” they underlined.

And so it was that over 60 faculty members and research scholars from several institutions came together for four days of learning.

The program was inaugurated by Dr. Jovita Jerome, Professor and Head, Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore.

The smart grid simulator developed at Amrita to provide a platform for researching future power systems was showcased.

Dr. K. K. Sasi, Vice-Chairperson of the Amrita Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering explained the features of this simulator. “Any power system simulator made to test the validity of schemes to be implemented on it has to take into account the 24 * 7 operation of the grid,” he noted.

Other speakers included Prof. K. S. Suresh Kumar from NIT Calicut, who elaborated on Unified Power Flow Controller Modeling and Dr. Sasidharan Sreedharan, Visiting Faculty, Asian Institute of Technology Bangkok who provided an overview of various software packages available for modeling and simulation of power systems.

Other experts spoke on topics such as solar panels, modeling and simulation of solar photovoltaic systems, wind electric generators, turbines and generators and excitation systems.

A panel discussion on the last day examined future trends and challenges of power systems.

Distinguished panelists included some of the aforementioned speakers as well as Dr. Rajeev Thottappillil, KTH University, Sweden and Amrita professor, Dr. T. N. P. Nambiar.

The panelists highlighted the effect of integrating renewable energy sources into the network and the effect of intelligent micro grids on the operation and control of power systems. The importance of conserving energy was also emphasized. Other challenges of distributed power generation were also noted.

Giving a thumbs-up to the program, the participants provided very good feedback.

“Expert talks were the highlight of the program. The simulator was very useful,” commented C. Udayashankar and Mohanraj M., faculty members from Coimbatore.

“I would like phase two of this event to focus also on systems modeling for power quality improvement,” suggested A. Suresh Kumar from Chennai.

“I liked the practical knowledge, because I can use it in my project of building a micro grid model. The program gave me a better understanding of challenges of operation of distribution networks,” shared Colas Chabuad, MTech student at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.

“Good tips for research methodology and publishing papers – linking theory and practical reality on the field by highly motivated teachers,” summed up Chidanand Fabien Robert, PhD scholar at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.

August 12, 2013
School of Engineering, Coimbatore