Engineering Students in Kolkata Create Device for 24×7 Solar Power

While battery manufacturers and solar power companies are struggling to develop batteries that would be cheap, smaller in size, and can store power for days, an engineering college in Kolkata has devised a combo of solar-based generation and power storage system that can supply power perpetually 24 hours a day all through the year at a fraction of conventional battery cost. It is scalable to any size and is suited for any hilly area as well as multi-storeyed buildings. A 100 kW pilot project is already being planned in the hills of the eastern states of India, while its smaller version, producing 100 W of power 24×7, is now running in Kolkata on a four-storeyed building. “The system is hugely scalable. It can be set up on a building that can generate 100 W or more throughout the day to even a few megawatts at fraction of battery costs,“ said Shri S P Gon Choudhury, Chairman of Renewable Energy College in Kolkata.

The system consists of a solar pump—basically solar modules that would generate power during day and run a water pump. It also consists of two water tanks at two different elevations. The upper tanks would release water at half the speed at which it receives water from the lower pump. The falling water would rotate a turbine—an equipment that generates electricity when rotated by an external force—falling stream of water from the elevated tank in this case. During day, water from the lower tank would be pumped to the upper tank. A portion of this water also flows down simultaneously into the lower tank generating power. The rest of the water in the elevated tank keeps flowing down during night, thus producing power the entire day.

Source: http://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/