NISE Develops Solar Powered Products Besides Testing and Certification

We caught up with Dr. Arun Kumar Tripathi, Director General (DG) at the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE), to understand developments at the top national R&D institution in the field of solar energy.

As he informs us, an autonomous institution of the Ministry of New and Renewable (MNRE), NISE was established to be a leading Institute in the field of solar energy through research & development, testing, certification and evaluation, economics, and policy Planning. Not only this but, NISE has developed some innovative solar powered products which completely runs off-grid only through solar energy.

Dr. Tripathi described the four pillars on which NISE established its missions and visions. 

“At present, NISE is focusing on basically four pillars, one of that is research and development, which includes the applied research and basic research. Applied research sees the product development.

And, the second one is consultancy. NISE is providing a lot of consultancy to the states, people, individuals, departments, and central departments.”

He further explained, “The third one is skill development. NISE is implementing a very massive skill development program of the government of India, called the ‘Sauryamitra’ program. In this, we have trained over 48 thousand technician level people. It is a three months course in which we have developed about 200 training centers all over the country, collaborated with different organizations and trained them.

And the fourth one is the testing, quality assurance, and certification that are very important.”

Besides these four objectives, NISE has also developed some solar powered products, which runs through solar energy without connecting to the grid. There are a total of 25 brilliant scientists working on Research and Developments and a total of 16 projects were reviewed in the Fiscal year 2018-19 at NISE. 

During the discussion with Saur Energy, Assistant Director at NISE, Mr. Vikrant Yadav elaborated on the development and functioning of the products. 

• Solar Water ATM: The Solar Water ATM installed at NISE is running completely on the solar photovoltaic panel of 4 KW, having a capacity of 500 LPH (Litres Per Hour). It is RO based water ATM that has a six-stage filtration technology. It has a card inserting system for taking the water out, which has a capacity of taking out 20 L water at once. NISE has installed the same solar water ATM with a capacity of 30 thousand liters per day, at Faridpur village in Gurugram. Another one has been installed at Safdurjung Hospital in Delhi and another is going to be installed at the National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management in Sonepat.

• Solar Cold Storage: A complete solar powered cold storage that can be installed at farm level, having capacities of five metric tons (for Rs.15 lakh) and ten metric tons (for Rs.20 lakhs). Farmers can install this cold storage at their farms for preserving the crops before transporting them to the buyer. Any cold storage needs to maintain the low temperature but after sunset, the photovoltaic panel could not produce the energy. To tackle this problem, NISE came up with two innovative technologies, one is VFD based refrigerator that runs on solar energy even in low radiations. The other is stored cooling energy into thermal energy named as Thermal Battery. The shelf life of the thermal battery is about 15 years, having a backup power of almost two days. 

• Solar Dryer cum Space Heating System: Industrial dryers use fossil fuels or electricity that causes emissions and cost consumption. NISE has developed a solar dryer by using solar thermal energy that can further be collected by the solar collector, which produces hot air as the output. That hot air is then sent to the chambers where fruits and vegetables can be dried. NISE has started this project with the Horticulture Department of Leh Ladakh to preserve the fruit called Apricot. 

• Bulk Milk Cooler: To preserve the milk instantly at the village level, NISE has introduced a solar milk cooler. The milk cooler has a refrigerator that runs through the energy produced by solar photovoltaic panels in the daytime and stores the cooling energy into the thermal battery for the time between evening to next morning. That thermal energy is used to cool the milk at 4° Celsius.

 

According to the Director General, the testing and certification process is the same as other certification organizations. NISE has NABL accredited laboratories for testing of solar components such as solar PV modules, inverters, batteries, solar thermal and solar water pumps. Testing facilities according to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the international standards of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). After testing it provides the test report along with the certificate, which may take time from one to three weeks. In the Fiscal year, 2018-19 a total of 80 samples were tested and certified in this laboratory, generating a revenue of Rs. 32.89 Lakhs at NISE.

Additionally, NISE has a greater involvement in the formulation stage and provides all the technical support for making the specifications of PM KUSUM scheme or in every scheme of MNRE. It has a presence in the various committees of MNRE and provides the supports for making the technical specifications and involved in almost every activity of MNRE.