- Innotech |
- སྤྱི་ཟླ་བཅུ་གཅིག་པ། 16, 2021
This month we’re highlighting the winners of the dhiTechHack: Group Innovation Challenge.
The honor of second place, and a cash prize worth Nu. 75,000 was awarded to a team from Bhutan Power Corporation Ltd.
The team aimed to mitigate power deficit and outages through an EV2X (Electric Vehicle to X) concept as an ancillary energy source. Among the issues they identified were prominent problems with power outages, power shortages during peak demand season, grid imbalances and the need for emergency power back-up.
The solution mapped critical areas, and planned to reserve EVs to cater electricity by connecting them through AC cords directly to these areas via a controller or through DC output using bidirectional EV chargers. As a real-life use case of the solution, the team identified various critical areas at the BPC Head Office, and demonstrated how, through their solution, they would be able to reserve 3 Nissan EVs (24kWh battery capacity) to meet the required load of these areas. Once scaled up, the team is confident that their solution will replace diesel generator sets at places where emergency power backup is vital.
The team also considered individual EV owners and their role in this system. The idea is to encourage charging of private EV during off-peak time and discharging during peak demand hours. Even if these users are unable to discharge to the grid, they should be encouraged to switch to EV2X to supply individual homes. By facilitating this energy injection into the grid to strengthen the EV2X systems, EV owners will be able to participate in the time of use tariffs and earn energy credits.
Winning second did not just happen. It only happened and could happen because of the right platform, right mentorship from DHI, SPBDD and STS, BPC, right team aligned with supportive supervisors who believed in us and of course hard work.
~BPC Team
The team consisted of the following employees from BPC:
– Kinley Dem, Executive Engineer
– Chhoney Dorjee, Senior Manager
– Karma Dorji, Manager
– Chador Dupa, Senior Engineer
– Sonam Dorji, Engineer