Jamia Milia University Makes Prize Winning Smart Solar Inverters’ Model

To aid rural electrification and promote reliable electricity distribution in the Indian villages, a professor from Delhi based Jamia Milia Islamia with his group of researchers has invented a smart solar inverter to replace traditional inverter which is expensive and also not environment-friendly.

Ahteshamul Haque from the Department of Electrical Engineering in Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI) along with his 25 students plans to light Indian villages through his ‘smart solar inverter’ model.

This model is a software that can connect to location and provide electric power like an inverter. This project has grabbed eyeballs globally, bagging the prestigious award from Switzerland’s Typhoon HIL.

The team is still working on making the product user-friendly. It will take at least 2-3 years to make it ready for the market. “We will tie-up with some industry players or entrepreneurs from our campus to take this product to the market. We have successfully deployed a 1kw model and are now looking at a 5kw model, which will be sufficient for use by an average Indian household.”

The project after winning the Swiss award and will receive a HIL-402 real-time simulator, which is used in power electronics, microgrid and renewable energy applications, worth Rs 20 lakh as an award. The machine will help them take his research further. The JMI team beat competitors from America, Europe, Asia and Africa at this international competition named ’10 for 10 Programme’. “Our model can be used as a grid connector and a standalone inverter,” says Haque.

The HIL-402 machine will help the researchers to simulate the actual power system in any setup to conduct hardware testing of the solar inverter. “This simulation software can make the whole topology, circuit in the given software. We will enter the power system in the machine and connect the inverter to it so that real-time signals can be passed. This will help us in taking any corrective measures needed to run the setup,” he adds.

Recently, Dr. Haque has also received R&D project grant under MHRD SPARC scheme.