NIT Raipur professor develops ‘Fault Tolerant Inverter’ to ensure smooth supply of solar power

Lalit Sahu, Assistant Professor in the Electrical Department at NIT Raipur, has developed a 'Fault Tolerant Inverter' so that electricity generated through solar panels could be used for residential as well as industrial purposes without interruption.

Raipur: A professor at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Raipur and his team have developed a ‘Fault Tolerant Inverter’ to deal with faults during the supply of electricity.

Lalit Sahu, Assistant Professor in the Electrical Department at NIT Raipur, has developed a ‘Fault Tolerant Inverter’ so that electricity generated through solar panels could be used for residential as well as industrial purposes without interruption.

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Shedding details about the ‘Fault Tolerant Inverter’, Assistant professor said that after going through several industry-based surveys as well as research articles, a conclusion was derived that the average life of a solar panel ranges between 15 and 20 years while the life of objects that convert power is 10-12 years and they frequently witness faults.

“Instead of ignoring such faults, we made an attempt to innovate a system that could tolerate faults and ensure continued maintenance of the power supply. In the task of developing the system, we succeeded in developing the ‘Fault Tolerant Inverter,” he said.

“It could be used for residential as well as industrial areas,” the assistant professor added.

Assistant Professor Sahu further informed that the inverter regulates the power variations of solar panels and ensures smooth supply.

“The first patent granted to us was partial fault-tolerant and was tolerant of the fault to some extent. Thereafter, we improved the design, made the control smarter and applied for a second patent. The second patent has been granted and it is fully fault-tolerant,” Sahu said.

Assistant professor also mentioned that the inverter ensures 100 percent delivery of power if any fault surfaces in the switch or capacitor.