Work Plan of NISE
The NISE has inherited fully developed testing facility for small and large size solar thermal
systems and Solar Resource Assessment. Among major projects / facilities include:






National Solar Thermal Power Testing, Research and Simulation Facility
Concentrated Solar Thermal Energy Technology based on Parabolic Dish collectors
Solar Thermal Stirling Engine
Development of a Modular Central Receiver Concentrated Solar Power Plant for
Decentralized Power Generation
High Efficiency Solar Thermal Air-conditioning Systems – a collaborative project of
Thermax Limited and solar Energy Centre
Cold Storage with Solar – Biomass Hybrid System
NISE is housing three major R&D projects:
1 MW Solar Thermal power project implemented by IIT Mumbai
Central Receiver Concentrated solar power plant implemented by M/s
SunBorne Energy Technologies.
Hydrogen –SPV project implemented by University of Petroleum and Energy
Sciences
Long Term Work Plan (2014-22)
Proposed Activities at NISE
In view the technical responsibilities assigned and requirements of JNNSM, NISE proposes to
organize itself in following Five Technical Verticals.





Solar Photovoltaic Division
Solar Thermal Division
Resource Assessment and Information Technology Division
Hydrogen Division
Training and HRD Division
Solar Photovoltaic Division: The SPV division is proposed to have two groups (i) R&D
group and (ii) Testing and Design group. The R&D group would have core activityon Basic
Research, Applied Research, Pre-commercial Research and the T&D group would have core
activity on Design, Testing and Certification.
1
SPV R&D Group
Basic Research:
“Basic Research” activity group is proposed to work on the development of
materials, devices, designs and simulation of new concepts in the device design. The key
areas would be of high efficiency silicon wafer based solar cell research, including
development of high efficiency (~23%) solar cell using innovative concepts like modified or
selective emitter, c-Si and a-Si hetero junctions with thin interfacial layers(HIT), Emitter
wrap through, front surface and back surface fields using ultra-thin wafers etc. There are
other concepts for high efficiencies such as quantum dots, up-converters or down
converters based solar cells using impurities bands. Following would be some of the areas of
basic research:





High efficiency Silicon solar cells using innovative concepts on lab scale
Development and up gradation of characterization facilities for wafers and cells
Development of reference devices and facilities for calibrations solar cells
Testing and evaluation of solar cells developed by other laboratories
Development of new materials, device structures and techniques
Applied Research:
“Applied Research” activity group is proposed to concentrate their efforts on
developmental aspects of large area solar cells, techniques, development PV modules and
systems, performance and reliability aspects of PV modules and PV systems under actual
field conditions. The group would also work on development of new modelling concepts,
innovative system designs to reduce the stresses on the modules during long term field
operation under different environments. This group would work with other testing
laboratories to gather information and collaborative research. Following are the major areas
of research for this group:

Technology validation of new technologies


Establishment of long term outdoor test beds for performance studies on PV modules
Develop PV module performance maps of the country and offer these to the users


Creation of new facilities and laboratories for system and component testing
Working closely with QCI, NABL and BIS for modification and development of SPV
standards
Pre-Commercial Research Group:
The group on “pre-commercial research” is proposed to work for the up-gradation of
the lab scale device to commercial scale, suitable for the industry to take up for the large
scale production. Dealing with the issues related with scaling up the process and
techniques. This group would work closely with the industry and tries to understand and
2
find solutions for industrial problems associated with the production and process. The major
activities are:



Study and understand scaling up process
Closely interact with the process groups of Industry
Monitoring facilities at different process steps and bench mark the performance
NISE proposes to partner with the neighbouring PV R&D group of BHEL (located in the same
campus) to develop high efficiency silicon solar cells. BHEL has already achieved > 18 % cell
efficiency on full size (6 inch) mono Si wafers. Further enhancement of cell efficiency, with a
long-term target of 23%, would be brought about using concepts of shallow emitter solar
cells coupled with back surface passivation and bi-facial solar cells, both on p-type silicon
wafers as well as novel device structures including hetero junctions using n-type silicon
wafers. In all these efforts, NISE would have a key role in cell design/ simulation, sourcing of
materials, process design and monitoring together with complete test & characterization of
solar cells and silicon materials. For cell processing, it would be necessary to procure a few
pieces of process equipment such as multi-stack diffusion furnace, pico/nano second laser
for patterning of thin films and equipment for deposition of thin films of silicon nitride/
aluminum oxide and integrate these with the existing process facility in BHEL. The cell
technologies developed in this set up would be such that these can be easily transferred to
manufacturing.
Testing & Design Group:
Solar Cell and System Testing:
The SEC has already established device characterization and performance
measurement facilities. These can be used by the research groups for their characterization
and also validate their climes made under the R&D projects. These services would be
chargeable.
The existing power electronics laboratory, lighting system testing laboratory, and
water pumping test facility will be up graded to meet the testing requirements
corresponding PV standards. These facilities will be NABL accredited to establish suitability
and acceptability of the test certificates. NISE will also setup new outdoor test beds for
different module technologies at SEC as well as other suitable sites for the data collection,
validation and mapping.
SPV Module Testing:
SEC has also established NABL accredited qualification test laboratory for PV
modules performance and qualification as per IEC 61215 and IEC61646. This will be further
up graded for testing as per other IEC standards 61730, 61701 and other relevant or useful
standards. The indoor qualification, environmental test facilities will be upgraded to be
useful to conduct research indoor studies on controlled or simulated conditions. Additional
3
facilities will also be created for new tests as per revised and new standards. All these
facilities will be available for the industry, users and other organizations for certification and
performance testing purpose at cost.
Design Lab:
NISE will also setup a system design laboratory with the available design software for
the verification and validation of the design developed by EPC contractors and developers
for MW scale PV power plants.
Following will be major activities of the group:







Up-gradation of the cell and module testing facilities
Development of module qualification and performance measurement facilities
Establish SPV system design laboratory for designing, validation of SPV systems/ power
plants
Offering the testing services to the industry, users and other organizations
Development of new systems designs, applications for rural and urban needs
Upgrade and establish PV system evaluation and certification facilities
Advisory and consultancy services to user organizations.
Solar Thermal Division
R&D Group
Basic Research:
The basic research activity group is proposed to focus on development and
optimization of components of various solar thermal technologies such as reflector,
collector, receiver, heat carrier, selective coating, storage system and materials. The
activities of this group would also encompass development of new end use applications of
solar thermal systems to enhance the capacity utilization (use of FPC based water heater for
cooling during summer). This division would also be engaged in designing of solar hybrid
systems for optimal utilization of solar energy and stabilization of output. It will also be
working on the development of new software applications for system designing and
optimization.
To improve the competitiveness of solar thermal systems in comparison to
conventional technologies, poly-generation employing an output management strategy will
be researched. This strategy aims at overcoming the thermodynamic limitations in efficiency
improvement by optimizing the system in such a way that waste products are converted
into useful outputs.
4




Component development & optimization
Development of new end use app.
Design & optimization of solar hybrid systems with poly-generation
Development of software app.
Applied Research:
The Applied research activity group is proposed to focus on Evaluation of
Technologies in field condition, develop end use applications and related activities as
follows:
 Technology evaluation and optimization
 Performance evaluation, system optimization and development of control
system for optimal performance
 End use application based research, design and development
 Characterization and preparation of state-of-art of different selective coating
materials for different technologies / enduse applications
 Development of protocol for online monitoring
Performance mapping:
Performance mapping of different solar thermal technologies and creation of Data
Bank for various ranges of applications for different climatic conditions would be the activity
of the group. The performance of solar thermal collectors depends heavily on a wide
number of factors such as DNI, Ambient temperature, Wind velocity, Latitude and desired
temperature. Therefore selection of appropriate & cost effective technology is critical. To
facilitate this technology selection and minimizing the payback period, a data bank of
different technologies for different operating conditions would be undertaken.
Testing and Design Group
Development and up gradation of test facility:



Development of test protocol
 Thermal performance
 Optical performance
 Component testing
Standardization of system
Establishment of test standards
Testing and characterization of Solar thermal technologies and their components &
materials:

Characterization and evaluation of
 Solar thermal storage systems/materials (PCM, Sensible, Chemical)
 Selective coatings
 Thermic fluid
System Design :Evaluation and optimization of systems and enduse applications
5
 Design and optimization of Solar Thermal/Hybrid power plant
 System design for industrial process heat/cooling
 Thermal energy audit
Resource Assessment and Information Technology Division
Resource Assessment Group
Resource assessment would be an important activity of NISE. 119 Automatic Solar
Radiation Monitoring Stations have been installed and commissioned in 11 States under the
Ministry’s project on Solar Radiation Resource Assessment (SRRA) through National Institute
of Wind Energy, Chennai. Each station houses various equipment / instruments to measure
Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI), Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), Diffuse Irradiance (DIF)
along with temperature, relative humidity (RH) wind direction and speed, pressure (weather
meteorological data) in automatic mode and is transferring the data through GPRS to a
Central Receiver Station at NIWE. There is a need to calibrate and maintain these
equipment for authenticated data. Therefore calibration and maintenance of equipment
located in north India will be undertaken by National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE).
NISE would create a Solar Radiation Calibration Laboratory along with data analysis
activities and mapping of solar resources in India. It would have following three activity
groups:



Data validation and Documentation
Data analysis and modelling
Mapping
Information Technology Group
The primary objective of this group is capitalize on the enormous power that IT and
ITES has to offer by integrating all aspects of IT with the day to day functioning of the
organization, making it more effective, economic and efficient. The group therefore shall be
responsible for all IT related support, services and technological development required to
support and strengthen the organization.
On a high level, the group shall be logically divided into a software division,
responsible for procurement, licensing, maintenance, installation etc. of software and tools
used across the organization besides suggesting improvisation on the software used based
on the latest advances in the domain across the world; a hardware division responsible for
networking, infrastructure setup, IT assets management and maintenance etc.; a services
division responsible for IT related developments including website creation and
maintenance, database management, customized software/program development to
implement the latest technical advancements as applicable to the organization etc.
6
Hydrogen Energy Division
A facility for production of Hydrogen through electrolysis of water has been established by
University of Petroleum and Energy Sciences (UPES), under MNRE sanctioned project. The facility
includes a 120 kWp roof mounted PV power plant, a 30KW electrolyze, high pressure (550 Bar)
storage facility, and a dispenser unit. M/s Mahendra & Mahendra offered 4 vehicles run on
Hydrogen as fuel. It is proposed to take over the facility and operate, maintain and evaluate the
feasibility of such Hydrogen generation and utilization projects in the country.
NISE has submitted a project proposal to MNRE for operation, maintenance and evaluation of the
project. UPES is in the final stage of completing the trial runs and stabilized the process. The staff
working in the project is proposed to appointed in NISE as much as possible to maintain continuity.
The total outlay of the project is about Rs. 80 lakhs. It is proposed that a separate vertical of
Hydrogen Energy would be developed in NISE.
Training & HRD Division
NISE has been carrying out training programmes on various aspects of solar energy
and renewable energy including national level training programmes. NISE has also
developed specialized training programmes for chartered engineers, professionals, and
designers of solar power projects. It has also been carrying out international training
programmes on solar photovoltaics and solar thermal activities. The solar PV and solar
thermal technologies have been developed in the Institute which is used as a live
demonstration for the trainees. It is proposed to develop the training activity as one of the
major and regular activity of NISE. 12 training programmes are being organized during
2014-15 on various aspects of solar thermal and solar photovoltaic activities for which
MNRE has provided funds. A Solar Energy Training Network (SETNET) is proposed to be
established by NISE in collaboration with USAID / India’s partnership to Advance Clean
Energy Development Technical Assistance Programme (PACE-D).
Activities 2014-15 and 2015-16
The year 2014-15 is the first year of NISE to function as autonomous institution. In line
with the technical responsibilities assigned to NISE and requirements of JNNSM, it would
become inevitable to upscale various facilities at NISE and create new facilities.
Following activities are proposed to be taken up during 2014-15 and 2015-16:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
Up-gradation of SPV module test facility
Up-gradation of solar cell test facility
Expand of battery test facility
Enlarge SPV water pumping test facility and other labs.
Up-gradation of Solar Thermal Labs
Establishment of IT cell
7
(vii)
(viii)
(ix)
(i)
Renovation of work shop facility
Establishment of R&D monitoring cell
Setting up of 500 kW SPV power plant &Solar collector of 60 m2 area.
Up-gradation of SPV module test facility
SEC has established NABL accredited qualification test laboratory for PV modules
performance and qualification as per IEC 61215 and IEC61646 for module size 1mX1m.
During 2014-15, this facility will be further up graded for testing as per other IEC standards
61730, 61701 and other relevant or useful standards. The facility for testing SPV modules of
size 2mX2m is under commissioning. The indoor qualification, environmental test facilities
will be upgraded to be useful to conduct research indoor studies on controlled or simulated
conditions. Additional facilities will also be created for new tests as per revised and new
standards. The upgraded test lab is proposed to be accredited by NABL during the current
year. Among the new equipment proposed to be procured is PV Sun Simulator, large size
environment Chamber and Electroluenence system.
(ii)
Up-gradation of solar cell test facility:
The Solar cell Characterization facility is proposed to be renovated and upgraded
during the year. It is proposed to add Spectral Response Measurement system, lock in
thermography (IR Camera) and Wide range Spector radiometer to take up advanced
research in the Characterization of various technology solar cells.
(iii)
Expansion of battery test facility
Storage is a very important component of SPV technology. Solar Energy Centre had
established a battery test facility in the year 2002. The facility is equipped with a life cycle
network (LCN) of 8 channels, a reserve capacity network (RCN) of 600A and a charger of 20V
200A.The facility is fully computer controlled and network adapter links the LCN and RCN
with the computer which has loaded LCN software. Different algorithms can be developed
to simulate actual field conditions for battery operations and to evaluate its performance.
This facility can also be used to develop suitable algorithms of a charger controller of a
battery, which can help in design and development of a suitable charge controller for
various applications of the batteries. The facility has also been augmented with an
environmental chamber to keep the battery at constant temperature and temperature
cycling during testing.
In the existing test facility, a battery is tested only for a very limited parameters
dealing with its physical characteristics such as, capacity and charge efficiency. To have
proper analysis of battery, the facility needs to be suitably upgraded by establishing a
chemical lab, vibrators and other related equipment. It is proposed that the existing facility
will be augmented with the inclusion of one more life cycle network of 10 circuits with
provision of automatic specific gravity measurement, and a vibrator for testing the
8
endurance, and establishing a chemical room. It is proposed that actual performance
analysis of lithium ion and vanadium redox batteries be undertaken for a long term.
(iv)
Enlarge SPV water pumping test facility and other labs.
The water pumping test facility, existing power electronics laboratory, and lighting
system testing laboratory will be up graded to meet the testing requirements corresponding
PV standards. These facilities will be NABL accredited to establish suitability and
acceptability of the test certificates. NISE will also setup new outdoor test beds for different
module technologies for the data collection, validation and mapping. The process of
accreditation with NABL for these laboratories has started and would be completed during
the current year.
(v)
Up-gradation of Solar Thermal Labs
(a) Solar thermal system test lab: It is proposed to design new modern test beds for
Flat plate Collector system, Evacuated Tube Collector system, parabolic solar cookers and
solar cookers as per BIS Standards. The lab would start testing new materials and develop
low cost industrial application for process heat and boiler feed water requirements.
(b) Solar thermal R&D and Resource Assessment activity: In collaboration with
various R&D institutions and industry, a number of R&D projects on various aspects of Solar
thermal technologies such as 1 MW solar thermal power plant, Solar cooling 100kW high
efficiency absorption prototype, 5 kW absorption type air cooling, solar –biomass hybrid
cold storage for remote village application, solar Stirling Engine, Solar water distillation, etc.
have been set up and are being studied. New and innovative ideas are being tried in these
projects to develop new products. The 1 MW solar thermal power project will be taken over
by NISE from IIT Bombay from 1st January, 2015.
(vi) Establishment of IT cell, Renovation of work shop facility and Establishment of
R&D monitoring cell
It is proposed to set up an IT group in NISE. The primary objective of this group
would be to integrate all aspects of IT with the day to day functioning of the organization,
making it more effective, economic and efficient. The group shall be responsible for all IT
related support, services and technological development required to support and
strengthen the organization. This group would also see the work of Solar Resource
assessment and interact with NIWE. The work shop facility is proposed to be renovated.
R&D monitoring cell has been set up at NISE (MNRE has provided a sum of Rs. 1.00 crore for
this).
9
(Vii) Setting up of 500 kW SPV power plant &Solar collector of 60 m2 area
47.
It is proposed that the NISE campus would be made as “Smart Campus” by making it
into a ‘Net zero electricity consuming centre’ and use solar energy for lighting of building
and for cooking. In this direction the new building of NISE is a solar passive building. It is
proposed that the electrical load of the entire building would be met through in-house
power generation from solar thermal power project, SPV power projects and a large part of
cooking in the cafeteria would be done through solar steam cooking.
500 kW Photovoltaic power plant for New Building
NISE falls under a “Composite “climatic zone of the six climatic zones of India. It is at
Latitude 28025' N, Longitude 7709' E. After a detailed analysis of the radiation pattern and
weather parameters, it is observed that the optimum tilt angel will be 25 042'. It has been
found that the range of global radiation on the tilted surface vary from 50 to 950W/m2 and
the maximum percentage of annual energy fall in the 600-900 W/m2 irradiance range. The
average range of ambient temperature at NISE is vary from 25-35 °C, the range of humidity
is from 25-40 %, and the wind speed is from 1 to 3 m/s.
Technology demonstration, validation and performance comparison of different solar
technology is an important part of NISE activities. Being a newly established organisation,
and to show case the strength of solar technologies, it is proposed that a 500 kW solar PV
power project be set up in the campus of NISE with different PV technologies. Accordingly
six PV technologies are selected; the proposed capacities of PV arrays of each technology
are given below:
Mono-crystalline- 100kWp,
Multi-Crystalline100kWp,
HIT-solar cells
50kWp,
Sun power maxeon- 50kWp,
Thin films-CiGs
100 kWp
Thin films CdTe100kWp
The arrays of the proposed technology PV modules will be installed on the roof of Admin
block having an area of 500m2, exhibition block with an area 100m2, central court yard
150m2, shaded parking 170m2, and guest house approximately 500m2. Thus the total
available area for PV array installation will be 3500m2. It will be possible to accommodate
about 350kWp PV array and balance of 150kWp PV array can be installed on some portion of
ground.
10
It is also proposed all three inverter configurations centralised, string and hybrid inverters to
make it operational. In this way a customized PV technology based smart grid will be set to
handle all types of loads of Admin block, exhibition block, central court yard, guest house
and shaded parking. This serves not only a technology demonstration but also provides
highly stable and quality power supply at NISE. The above power plant of different PV
technologies is expected to generate approximately 0.7 million units of electrical power
annually which is more than the expected consumption of NISE. This amounts to a
generation of 1400 units per kWp of installed PV array capacity.
Solar steam cooking system for NISE
It is proposed to set up a Solar Cooking System at NISE. Steam and direct (roti or fry)
both type of cooking are proposed here. It is proposed to go for a hybrid and fully automatic
system for harnessing maximum solar energy. Fossil fuel (LPG) will accomplish only the
deficit of solar output during the cloudy and non-sunny days. The system will consist LPG
and Solar hybrid boiler, thermic fluid, microprocessor-based tracking mechanism, parabolic
collector, insulated oil storage container, steam cooking vessel and hot plate (for Roti).
Solar collector of 60 m2 area is requisite to cook three meal/day for 200 people. 113
Kg of steam @1500C is required for the same. The solar cooking system will reduce use of
LPG and bring in savings for the institute. The table below details the upfront investment
needed by the institute and the payback period. For better efficiency of system, a solar LPG
hybrid system is being proposed.
11