International Business Machines Corp (IBM) has signed a research collaboration agreement with Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) and Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) to develop systems that will help power grids become more efficient and resilient.
The systems will analyse power grid data for predictive insights. They will also improve grids to enhance productivity and reduce inefficiencies in power consumption.
IBM Research – India will work with these two institutes to develop open system designs that can boost the potential of Phasor Measurement Units (PMU), a new type of sensor on power grids. The IBM researchers and the students will develop network architectures to reliably collect data from PMUs as well as analytical tools that process the collected data to provide valuable information to the grid operators.
The knowledge and insights gained from this collaborative research work will be made publicly available, in order to enable governments and businesses around the world to take advantage of the PMU technology.
According to the International Energy Agency the global demand for electricity is expected to increase significantly during the period 2006-2030 - at 1.1% per year on average in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In comparison, in China and India increases of 7.6% and about 6% per year are expected.
This rising demand increases stress on grids, thereby increasing the chances of power outages. To prevent such outages and their impact on productivity, it is important to make the grid more intelligent by adding sensing, control and communication components.
"With the exploding world population and the increased demand for clean and cheap energy there is a pressing need for making the power grids efficient, intelligent and secure. The collaboration between IBM Research – India, and IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur aims to reduce inherent inefficiencies of power grid technologies and make them optimally productive," explained Dr Manish Gupta, Director, IBM Research – India and Chief Technologist, IBM India/South Asia.
"By helping power grids become more efficient, the project will also contribute to the efforts of creating sustainable energy generation systems."
IIT Kharagpur will be primarily involved in developing the new power system applications and software for the project, while IIT Madras will focus on the networking architecture to ensure that data collected from different locations are appropriately transmitted to one location. A test-bed will be developed to connect IBM Research laboratories and both the institutes, to emulate a smart grid network. The test-bed will be used to evaluate the network architecture and the open system designs in real-life scenarios.
"Existing power grids are facing technical challenges because of their outdated design and growing loads," said Professor A.K. Sinha, IIT Kharagpur.
"Through our knowledge in the power-system application domain and IBM's expertise, our students will work towards developing an innovative grid management application to make the power grid more reliable."
Professor Krishna Sivalingam, IIT Madras, added: "One of the key elements of a smart grid is secure and high-speed communication networks. The association is not only a step towards addressing this pressing requirement but also provides a platform for our students to work with the research veterans from IBM and get a real-life problem solving and application development experience."
The project is part of IBM's Open Collaborative Research (OCR) programme - an initiative to foster innovation through university-industry research collaboration.
This partnership with IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur is the fourth engagement of its kind. IBM recently announced its collaboration with IIT Bombay. It also recently announced an OCR project with the National Institute of Design (NID). IBM says that it is involved in more than 150 smart grid engagements in mature and emerging markets.
For further information, contact:
International Business Machines Corp, 1 New Orchard Road, Armonk, NY 10504-1722, USA. Tel: +1-914-499-1900, Fax: +1-914-765-7382, Web: www.ibm.com, Web: www.research.ibm.com, www.ibm.com/smarterplanet
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, I.I.T. Post Office, Chennai - 600 036, India. Tel: +91-2257-8105, Fax: +91-44-2257-0509, Web: www.iitm.ac.in
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur-721 302, India.
Tel: +91-3222-255221, Fax: +91-3222-255303, Web: www.iitkgp.ac.in
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