The Neotia University has organized a conference on “Energy Options for Tomorrow: Technology to Sustainability”.

The Neotia University (TNU) has organized a conference on “Energy Options for Tomorrow: Technology to Sustainability”, from 17-19th April, 2017at Eco Vista, New Town. Shri M. K. Narayanan, Former Governor of West Bengal, has inaugurated the conference. In his speech, Shri Narayanan highlighted the importance of technology in the lives of human beings and how the society is being impacted by technology. He spoke about the importance of energy in the development of any society. According to him, India which is doing well in using non-conventional energy sources has to do better by training new generation of technocrats and scientists.

He congratulated TNU for initiating a unique B.Tech programme in “Energy Engineering”. In the same session, the Vice Chancellor of TNU, Prof. A. S. Kolaskar said, “The new executive order of US President Donald Trump gives immense opportunity to India to play a major role to achieve the goals of Paris Convention. However, India needs to invest in energy research as well as human resource development by changing our current policies.”

The conference was attended by more than 90 scientists and technocrats from Edinburgh, Dublin and almost all states of India. Nearly 20 academic institutes and 8 different industry representatives participated in the conference. During the conference, 20 lectures, panel discussions, 29 posters and 12 young researchers’ gave oral presentations. Springer Publishers gave four best Poster awards and one best overall paper presentation award. Each award being 250 Euro in e-books published by Springer. The conference was supported by CSIR, Government of India, India Power Corporation Limited (as Gold Sponsorer), Vikram Solar Private Limited, and Springer among others.

During the conference large number of talks were delivered by scientists from Trinity College Dublin, The University of Edinburgh, IISc Bangalore, IITs, etc. In addition to this, top industry persons from India Power Corporation Limited, Adani Power Limited, Vikram Solar Private Limited, Emami Power, as well as, CSIR, MNRE and young scientists discussed relevant issues and most recent research work in this area.

The first academic session of the conference had an interesting talk by Mr. ShrirangKarandikar, CEO, India Power Corporation Limited, who pointed out that, as today the mobile telephone user can select the vendor of his choice, user of electricity must have a choice to select an electricity provider. Only then one can expect to get low cost high quality 24×7 power supply. He also mentioned that ASSOCHAM has been lobbying for this and hoping that the new policy of Government of India will include these suggestions. In the same session, Mr. Sandeep Dixit, Head, Adani Power Center for Research and Performance Consulting talked about the impact of renewable energy based electricity generation on the Indian grid. He emphasised the need to create a separate grid for renewable energy based electricity. Professor Kamanio Chattopadhyay, IISc Bangalore, pointed out how the energy scenario is evolving and argued that the figures which have been published about the requirement of energy need to be accepted with a pinch of salt as many advancements are taking place to conserve energy and to reduce losses in distribution. Mr. Ivan Saha, BU Head, Vikram Solar Pvt Ltd, said that his company is competitive in terms of cost and quality of solar panels with grade I companies in China for solar panels. He further pointed out that price of generation of energy from sun is comparable to or lower than conventional thermal electrical power. He mentioned that his company will soon start manufacturing solar cells. Other speakers have also pointed out various advancements in solar cell technologies and reduction in cost.

An absorbing talk was delivered by Mr. Avinash Shirode, Founder, Shirode Associates who spoke on the innovative approach in design of wind mills, particularly about the use of small magnets in large numbers that help in generating electricity from low RPM and low wind velocity. He cited several examples on how wind mills can be used in different shapes and sizes to generate energy from almost anything that moves. Professor Biswajit Basu of Trinity College, Dublin and Professor Joydip Bhattacharjee, Dept of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, IIT Kharagpur dealt with electrical power generation from offshore tidal waves. They described several new approaches to capture tidal wave energy and suggested that India has huge potential to generate energy from offshore tidal waves. Professor Parul Chakrabarti from Bengal Tuberculosis Association said that one can use bacteria to design fuel cells and generate energy. The specific bacteria about which she spoke is called R. ferrireducens. This bacteria converts more than 80% sugar and thus provides sufficient energy. She has been designing such fuel cells in her laboratory in Kolkata. Among other noted speakers, Dr. G. Giridhar, Deputy Director General & Head, National Institute of Wind Energy, Chennai, spoke on solar resource assessment in India.

The conference also witnessed a panel discussion where the economists, industry captains and academia discussed how to bring down the cost of electricity to the end user without compromising on the quality. It was highlighted that the users today are paying high cost per unit of electrical power though the manufacturer is selling it almost at production cost or even at a loss. The two-three fold more cost to the end user as compared to electrical power generation cost need to be bridged. Towards this, several suggestions were given by the panellists –

• • Better distribution and reduction in loss in the grid
  • Increased grid capacity
  • Not to disrupt base power generating generators such as based on coal, gas etc.
  • To evolve better storage systems
  • The success of the conference proves that private universities like TNU are taking higher education and academics seriously.

These suggestions were discussed threadbare. The success of the conference proves that private universities like TNU are taking higher education and academics seriously.