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The project ‘Inverter design with alternative charging technique with user friendly parameter monitoring interfaces’ has been developed by eighth semester students Pratheek Michael, Pavan M, Sayeed Nadeem and Suhas S Bhat under the guidance of Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, S Nagendra Prasad.
Inverters are one of the most commonly used devices for electricity back-up in the country at the height of summer.
However, summers are also when inverters face a major drawback that the industry has been unable to address. Every time load shedding takes place for a long time, the charge in the inverters drains out and people have to wait until power is restored through the main line.
To address the problem, the team of students have developed a model through which solar panels are connected to the inverter.
During power cuts, the inverter gets activated and supplies electricity to the house or industry, and the solar panels continue to charge the inverter, ensuring electricity supply until power is restored.
Another feature is that whenever sunny conditions exist, the inverter gets charged using the solar panels, instead of absorbing power from the main lines, Pavan, a team member, told Deccan Herald.
Pointing out the other factors that makes their product unique, Pratheek said that they have included an EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference) filter that ensures quality of power.
Domestic power supply has ripples that could damage household electronic appliances. Using an EMI filter reduces the ripples and improves the quality of power, Prateek said.
Additional features include a user-friendly monitoring interface that indicates the water-level, temperature and other factors to help consumers ensure that their inverter has a longer life span.
Project guide Nagendra Prasad said a PC interface will permit a one-point control and flexibility of the design permits it to be scaled up to be used in the network. Mentioning improvement possibilities of their work, the team members said electricity from the inverter charged with solar energy could be fed back into the power grid.
If used on a mass scale, electricity ‘backfeeding’ could take place, addressing power shortages.