Ashok Jhunjhunwala
Title: Leveraging decentralized Solar-DC towards enable 24 x 7 power to Indian Homes
Abstract: Demand-supply gap in power has resulted in 2 to 20 hours power-cuts in most Indian homes especially in summer months, in addition to almost 80 million homes having no grid-connectivity. Using DC appliances as demand-side intervention and decentralized solar as a supply side intervention, the gap can be considerably reduced. Using an innovative UDC technology, the existing grid, with minimal change, could supply 24 x 7 but limited power to each home and at the same time create a demand pull for solar-DC. The paper presents steps to achieve this in near-term.
Speaker: Ashok Jhunjhunwala
Dr. Jhunjhunwala is an Institute Professor at IIT Madras. He received his B.Tech degree from IIT, Kanpur, and his MS and Ph.D degrees from the University of Maine. From 1979 to 1981, he was with Washington State University and has been at IIT Madras ever-since, where he leads the Telecommunications and Computer Networks group (TeNeT). The group works with industry in the development of telecom, banking, IT and Power Systems (including solar) technologies relevant to India, and has a special focus on rural technologies. It has incubated more than seventy companies in the last twenty years. He chairs IITM Incubation cell, Health Technology Innovation Center (HTIC), co-chairs Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI) at IIT Madras and is professor in-charge of IITM Research Park. He also chairs a MHRD committee called ‘Quality Enhancement of Engineering Education (QEEE)’ focused on 500 Indian engineering colleges, other than IITs and NITs.
Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala has been awarded Padma Shri in the year 2002. He has been awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 1998, Dr.Vikram Sarabhai Research Award for the year 1997, Millennium Medal at Indian Science Congress in the year 2000 and H. K. Firodia for “Excellence in Science & Technology” for the year 2002, Shri Om Prakash Bhasin Foundation Award for Science & Technology for the year 2004, Awarded Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Lecture Award by INSA for the year 2006, IBM Innovation and Leadership Forum Award by IBM for the year 2006, awarded Bernard Low Humanitarian Award in 2009, awarded ‘Bharat Asmita Vigyaan Tantragyaan Shresththa Award’ for the best use of Science & Technology through Innovation in 2010, and awarded Honorary Doctorates by the Institute of Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden in 2008 and University of Maine, USA in 2010. In 2010, he was also awarded JC Bose Fellowship in 2010 by DST, Government of India, awarded Dronacharya (2011) by TiE and recently awarded Top Innovator of Top 11 in 2011 Innovators Challenge. He is a Fellow of World Wireless Research forum, IEEE and Indian academies including INAE, IAS, INSA and NAS.
Dr. Jhunjhunwala is a Director in the Board of Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited, Polaris, Sasken, Tejas, Tata Communications, Exicom,Mahindra Reva Electrical Vehicles Pvt Ltd and Intellect Design Arena Limited. He is also a board member of several educational institutes and section 25 companies including BIRAC. He was member of Prime Minister’s Scientific Advisory Committee from 2004-14.
