UAP holds seminar on Smart Grid Solution
Smart Grid Solution: Empowering the Future of Power Distribution – with this motto, DPDC organised a seminar titled ‘Exploring Smart Grids, Shaping the Future of Sustainable Energy’ at the University of Asia Pacific (UAP) on Thursday, 26 October 2023, stated a press release.
‘Construction and Augmentation of Substation Installation of Capacitor Bank and Introduction of Smart Grid in Power System under DPDC Areas (CSCSG Project)’ – under this project initiated by Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited (DPDC), co-funded by the European Union (EU) and French Agency for Development (AFD) this seminar was held to discover the endless possibilities of smarter energy future. This event was facilitated by the implementing partner and official consultant organisation NKSoft Corporation, USA.
Vice-chancellor of UAP Professor Kamrul Ahsan was the chairman of the seminar while, executive director (engineering) of DPDC Morshed Alam Khan and chief engineer of DPDC Md Tariqul Hoque were the special guests. The event's seminar moderation and keynote speech were expertly handled by consultants from NkSoft Corporation, USA.
Notably, managing director at NKSoft Corporation John Chowdhury lent his insights as one of the distinguished consultants from the organisation.
The seminar gained further insights from representatives who offered their valuable comments. Edwin Koekkoek, team leader at Green Inclusive Development and Social Protection, EU provided a thoughtful contribution on behalf of the EU. Thibaut Hamm, project manager at AFD, shared significant perspectives representing AFD.
The event commenced with an impactful Welcoming Speech delivered by Farjana Yesmin Asha, director of Global Brand Communication at NKSoft Corporation USA, setting the tone for the seminar's discussions and interactions.
The seminar started with a welcome speech by Abdul Alim, project director at CSCSG Project and finished with a speech by UAP vice-chancellor Kamrul Ahsan. The seminar was conducted with the participatory method where students were very attentive and responsive to communicate with the experts.
‘We are here to get more innovative ideas for accelerating the Smart Grid project’ mentioned by Abdul Alim and Tariqul Hoque told that Smart Grid is the first initiative of Smart Bangladesh so we have to move on with innovations and skilled manpower as energy is the source of the country’s economic growth today.
In this seminar there were 275 participants from UAP and the main reason behind this seminar was to create awareness on Smart Grid among the next generation talents to get them into this revolutionary journey to make the country smarter. The VC committed to DPDC to provide special support from UAP to develop smart manpower to run Smart Grid in Bangladesh.
This seminar was held to unlock the potential of the next generation and build the future for tomorrow. DPDC held its awareness campaign in UAP because they believe that the country’s best potential and talented engineers come from this institution. As part of their communication campaign, they planned to organise a seminar on Smart Grid in six universities and schools.
‘Consultancy services for procurement, implementation, supervision, dissemination, replicability and communication to introduce smart grid under DPDC area on pilot basis’ is the sub-project under CSCSG project to create awareness and run the campaign on Smart Grid to help people to be part of this revolutionary journey to build up smart Bangladesh through Smart Grid.
It’s mentionable that Power Factor Improvement and Smart Grid under Dhaka Power Development Company (DPDC) is a blended finance project where an EU grant is combined with a soft loan from AFD, for a total of EUR 112 million. The project has the following main features:
· A total of 1,141,000 people will benefit from a significant improvement in the quality of electricity service;
· It helps fight climate change by preventing an accumulated 104,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year;
· It is the first ever-smart grid project in Bangladesh.
With this project, AFD and the EU are reinforcing their role in supporting the Government in the search for and use of advanced digital solutions in distribution stations and in medium-voltage grids.
The goal is to equip existing infrastructure with these new, innovative and reliable technologies in order to ensure services are prepared for the future.
A core aspect of Bangladesh’s economic development strategy is an improved performance of the power sector in terms of generation, transmission, and distribution.
Today, the smart grid in Bangladesh is in its first phases, and it mainly consists of deploying smart meters. Overall, and not just including the project with the DPDC, the smart grid solution is of great operational value.
It makes it possible to carry out maintenance upstream of failures and to optimise the use of equipment (power transformers, circuit breakers, etc.). Real-time algorithms will continuously analyse the hardware connected to the grid and thus extend its life.
The digital presence at all levels of the network allows for better knowledge of the network and anticipation of outage-related events. The smart grid gives a more reliable, accessible grid. Improving its (grid) performance will consequently eliminate the pollution caused by the diesel generators which are used as back-up during grid outages.
Any initiative sustains with the innovations and comprehensive ideas for boosting up the initiative into next level. As the youth are our future leader to lead the country’s development so this awareness campaign helps them to learn, acquire, retain and apply knowledge and skills to empower the power sector through Smart Grid.