India aims to meet its growing power demands through the expansion of its renewable energy capacity. This warrants a strong transmission infrastructure to integrate and evacuate renewable energy, as a transmission network acts as the backbone of power systems to transfer power from generation stations to load centres. As the country works towards this mission, a thorough transmission network analysis is needed to design a power evacuation scheme and assess technical feasibility. CSTEP supports transmission utilities to strengthen their transmission infrastructure and integrate a higher share of renewable energy to provide a reliable supply.
A novel approach to determine the non-dimensional heliostat field boundary for solar tower plants
A novel approach to determine the non-dimensional heliostat field boundary for solar tower plants.Solar tower technology has gained considerable momentum over the past decade. In a solar tower plant, the power collected by the heliostat field is strongly coupled to the height of the tower and its location with respect to the field. This paper provides a methodology to fix the boundary of the field (non-dimensionalised with respect to the tower height).
Polysilicon Manufacturing in India: Go or No-Go
This Policy Brief speaks about domestic manufacturing of polysilicon in India, given the ambitious solar targets. It will require two main policy incentives to make it competitive with international prices: low interest finance (6%) and cheaper electricity.
Harnessing Waste Heat for Power Generation in Karnataka
The policy note examines the existing status of Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) technology in Karnataka and potential uptake in near future. As the fifth most industrialized Indian state, Karnataka's cement, iron and steel sectors consume 28% of the state's total power (as of 2016) and is expected to be in the same range by 2030 as well.
Design of Solar Field and Performance Estimation of Solar Tower Plants
The study aims to develop a methodology to carry out a technical analysis of a solar tower (ST) technology. The proposed rational approach determines the optimum solar field and the associated tower height for an ST using an external cylindrical receiver, using molten salt as both HTF and storage medium operating with steam Rankine power cycle.
Creating Solar "Parks" in Cities
Rooftop photovoltaic (RTPV) systems are intended to contribute 40 GW of India's 100 GW solar target. While the uptake of utility-scale solar PV systems is progressing at a steady pace, their RTPV counterparts are witnessing a slow uptake. The sluggish growth can be attributed to a lack of economies of scale, absence of accurate potential assessment, and complexity in procedures.
Renewables and Energy Efficiency
Solar: CSTEP is actively involved in shaping solar policy at both the state and central levels. CSTEP’s pioneering work in the field of aerial imagery-based rooftop solar potential assessment in cities has gained traction in Karnataka and Bihar. CSTEP also works with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) to design systems for solar-based electrification in challenging locations. CSTEP is a knowledge partner for the Government of Karnataka for solar technology and policy analyses.