To mark the celebration of National Science Day, IIT Kanpur hosted a virtual event on February 28, 2021. The theme of this year was ‘Energy’. Prof. A. R. Harish, Dean Research and Development IITK welcomed all the participants. Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director IIT Kanpur inaugurated the event with his opening remarks. He emphasized on the significance of Sustainable Energy and IITK’s giant leap towards the same by establishing the Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering. The first speaker of the event was Professor Ashish Garg, Head of Sustainable Energy Engineering Department. He talked about the challenges and potentials of "Solar Photo voltaics".
Professor Sameer Khandekar, Head of Mechanical Engineering Department focused his presentation on Thermal Energy Management and shared his experiences on developing the "Thermal Energy Storage Systems" at the Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering building at IITK. Professorr. Jishnu Bhattacharya, Department of Mechanical Engineering provided an overview of the promise, challenges and the current status of the"Hydrogen as Energy Carrier". The meet ended with a Vote of Thanks to the Chair and the participants.
The abstract of the talks are as follows
Solar Photovoltaics
Speaker: Prof. Ashish Garg
With growing energy demand coupled with economic growth and prosperity, India needs to place strong emphasis on the development of solar photovoltaic technologies that are indigenous, low cost and offer long life. The inherent advantages of solar photovoltaics make it a technology of immense promise as also seen in massive growth in the solar PV deployments off late. This talk will give an overview of importance of solar energy and photovoltaics. It will discuss various technologies with an update on their market status as well as the research opportunities new technologies offer.
Thermal Energy Storage Systems for Buildings from Science to Engineering: An IITK Story
Speaker: Prof. Sameer Khandekar
Thermal energy management is a critical element of building design. It is increasingly gaining predominance in the contemporary times with an important component of capital and running expense of a building getting attributed to energy usage pattern of a building. Very recently, IIT Kanpur has successfully implemented a Thermal Energy Storage System based on phase-change material, for storing cold and manage the peak air-conditioning load distribution. This talk will outline the need for thermal management, the science behind it, and explain the engineering implementation at the Center for Environmental Science and Engineering Building at IIT Kanpur.
Hydrogen as Energy Carrier
Speaker: Prof. Jishnu Bhattacharya
In search of sustainable technologies to ensure a greener future for the world, hydrogen provides one of the highly promising routes. It is the cleanest possible fuel with unbounded abundance even though not in the ready form. Being the lightest of the elements, it is associated with many challenges such as storage difficulty and poor energy density. In the current talk, we will have an overview of the promise, challenges and the current status of the relevant technologies. The myth of zero emission will be challenged. A comparative discussion will also be taken up between the two most talked about technology paradigms towards defossilizing transportation.
