Mr. Omkar Buwa will present his APS as per the detail:

Time: 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Venue: CTARA Conference Room No.1

Guide: Prof. Anand B. Rao, Prof. Jayendran Venkateswaran

RPC Members: Prof. Satish Agnihotri, Prof. Albert Thomas

Title: Dynamic Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (D-LCSA) of Mini grids

Abstract:

Electricity access has been a requisite part of any global development process. Extension of electricity to every end user is the priority work undertaken by many countries. Though the electricity access rate has improved in the last few years, globally 770 million people are still without electricity access. Moreover, urban-rural disparities are observed in the access and there is a need to focus more on rural areas. There are three possible approaches to providing electricity access: - centralised grid extension, mini grids and solar home systems (SHS). The government of India has kept a target of extending electricity at every doorstep through the SAUBHAGYA-Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana. This scheme consists of either grid extension or providing SHS to the remote areas where grid extension is not possible. In addition, the rural areas find mini grids as a promising solution due to the poor services from the central grid and the limitations of SHS ratings to fulfill the electricity demands. India has 1792 mini grid installations, the highest in Asia. However, the mini grids face challenges of a variety of kinds - social, economic, business considerations, and strategic planning approaches. There is a growing research interest in the sustainability assessment of mini grids. As state-of-the-art assessment techniques are of static nature, the proposed research work aims at Dynamic Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (D-LCSA) of mini grid projects. This is the system thinking approach where system dynamics theory will be applied for LCSA of mini grids. The outcome may be the digital dashboard for sustainability assessment which will help with policy decisions and the planning of mini grids.