19th National Power Systems Conference held during 19-21st December 2016 at IIT Bhubaneswar

The 19th National power System Conference NPSC-2016 held at the School of Electrical Sciences, IIT Bhubaneswar during 19-21 December 2016. The main theme of the NPSC-2016 was "Towards reliable, safe and secure Smart-grid infrastructure". The conference was inaugurated by Prof. M. Ramamoorty,Ex, Director General, CPRI, Bangalore as Chief Guest, Prof Saifur Rahman, IEEE PES President Elect, as Guest of Honour, Prof R V Raja Kumar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar presided over the inaugural function.  Prof S C Srivastave, Chairman, NPSC National Standing committee and Dr S R Samantaray, Convener, NPSC-2016 coordinated the conference. The conference honoured Shri R N Nayak, Ex CMD, POWERGRID for Industry excellence award and Prof D Thukaram, IISC for Academic Excellence Award.  Shri Mata Prasad received IIT BHU Malviya Excellence Award for life time achievement.

There were 4 pre-conference tutorials including topics on latest trends in power system engineering such as State Estimation in Power System by Dr N D R Sarma, Texas A & M University and Dr Saikat Chakrabarti, IIT Kanpur, Micro-grid / Renewable Integration by Prof Bhim Singh, IIT Delhi and  Prof Mahesh Kumar, IIT Madras, Synchro-Phasor and Wide-Area applications by Prof S A Soman, and  Prof Anil Kulkarni, IIT Bombay,  Smart-grid and Cyber Security in Power System by Ms Kumud Wadhwa, PGCIL and Prof Sandeep Shukla, IIT Kanpur.

The conference included 8 keynote lectures delivered by eminent speakers including inaugural keynote lecture by Prof Saifur Rahman, IEEE PES President Elect. Other keynote speakers included Prof Anirudhra Gole from Univeristy of Minitoba, Canada, Prof Anil Pawhs from Kansas State University , USA, Prof Anurag Srivastava from WashingtonState University, USA, Prof Chanan Singh from for Texas A &M, USA, Dr Rambabau Adapa from EPRI, USA, Prof V Ajjarapu from Iowa State University, USA, Dr Ratan Das from icaPower, USA and Mr S K Soonee, Ex CEO, POSOSCO. All of them delivered keynote lectures on latest trends in power engineering and smart-grid.

The conference had 15 oral sessions spreading over 9 tracks including PMU and Wide Area Applications,Power Electronics and Drives, power Electronics Applications to Power Systems,Power Quality Issues,Power System Protection,Power Systems Dynamics and Stability Analysis,Restructuring in Distribution Systems,Smart Grid andCyber Security for Smart-grid. All the sessions were conducted by experts in respective fields as sessions chairs and co-chairs. Apart from oral sessions, 43 papers were displayed in the poster session. The conference was attended by 250 participants and delegates from different parts of the country and abroad.

The conference included a panel discussion on “Need and Roadmap for Enhancing Industry-Academia Interaction in Indian Power Sector” by eminent experts in power system engineering by Prof M Ramamoorty, Ex DG CPRI, Prof K MR Padiyar, IISc, Prof A K Tripathy, Ex DG CPRI, Dr M Arunachalam, Ex ED, BHEL, Mr B C Jena, EX CEO, CESU. The panel discussion stressed on the need of industry-academia interface in Indian context and necessary measures to  crate a platform for power engineers from both academia and industry to exchange their thoughts and ideas on the challenges in different areas of power system engineering and smart-grid.

The conference was technically sponsored by IEEE Kolkata section and Bhubaneswar sub-section and sponsored by POWERGRID, POSOCO, PRDC, CPRI, GE, NTPC, Nayak Power System, NPTI, SERB DST and OPAL-RT.

The participants including the foreign participants felt that the conference was well organized and acknowledged that it was technically rewarding.