The country's only Smart Grid Lab, which came up two months ago, is not just a future scenario. It is work in progress as far as MD Praveer Sinha is concerned.

It is home to several pilot projects being run by Delhi-based Tata Power-DDL, the company that lights up (in joint venture with the government) large parts of the Capital. The lab showcases how IT and operational technology can be applied to bring about transformational changes to the lives of ordinary consumers.

Called the 'Centre of Excellence', the lab is designed such that it has the capability to simulate scenarios to test new energy technologies and discern their impact through a number of interactive display units. Each panel, against a stark white background, portrays a technology solution by a company to improve power operations worldwide.

“We have built this to demonstrate core technologies, understand the challenges and to test their benefits for our consumers,” says Sinha, starting the tour from the first display that showcases the Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS).

Targeted at delivering enhanced productivity and efficiency, the ADMS solution by GE is a one network model that ensures that the lights always stay on, outages are prevented and if they do occur, are addressed immediately. The next display — Distribution Network Automation — the self-healing grid by Siemens is even more engaging. As its name suggests, the mechanism reduces fault time during an outage to the minimum. Consumers may never even know that a fault occurred as the power gets supplied to them through an alternative source.

Then comes the PLC based Smart Meters by Agnitio that provide actual implementation proof of the last mile connectivity of smart meters.

This technology, Sinha informs, is being tested through a pilot for the past two years.

Honeywell's Automated Demand Response solution follows next. This is an open source model to meet the peak demand of consumers. Proud to be the first Indian power utility to launch the ADR with smart meter, the MD explains how this technology enables peak load shifting without wide-scale load shedding.

The Solar PV Monitoring and Analytics display captures how a cloud platform furbished by Susten and Tech Mahindra can be used for the purpose. This is followed by Innovari's Grid Optimization Solutions that showcase the Interactive Energy Platform which has the capability to bring about seamless integration of edge-of-grid capacity resources for an effective and efficient grid utilisation.

The lab itself is the pilot programme for this one.

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