Plaksha and Tabreed to test Renewable Energy Integration with Innovative Thermal Energy Storage under a Cooling Services Management Contract
India, 23 May 2024: Plaksha University, a technology university reimagining higher education and research in India, has announced a groundbreaking partnership with Tabreed India to develop a living laboratory to test various energy storage technologies and its integration with smart microgrid at the campus. Initially, the partnership will test the integration of innovative phase change material (PCM)-based thermal energy storage with solar energy in a hostel building, aiming to decarbonize residential cooling energy consumption and minimize grid reliance.
As part of this first-of-its-kind Cooling as a Service (CaaS) contract with a university campus in South Asia, Tabreed India will take charge of Plaksha’s existing cooling systems to enhance energy efficiency and provide reliability commitments upwards of 98%. Besides research on thermal storage, Plaksha will experiment with consumption-based billing to foster behavioral change among users in the hostel.
Sudheer Perla, Managing Director, Tabreed Asia, says: “We are excited to partner with Plaksha University for a project that combines technology and business model innovation. Through implementing our planned innovations, we hope to demonstrate the cost and sustainability benefits of replacing battery energy storage with thermal energy storage (TES) systems, and the scalability potential of TES systems in the energy transition efforts underway. We aim to pave the way for other large university campuses, industrial parks, and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to aspire for truly self-sufficient grid-independent campuses in the near future.”
The collaboration is part of the broader partnership between Tabreed India and IFC’s award-winning TechEmerge Program, through Cooling Innovation Lab (CIL), that aims to accelerate market adoption of innovative cooling technologies through the implementation of grant-funded pilots and innovative business models. This setup will demonstrate how the dual problem of variability in renewable power generation, which accounted for 70% of new generation capacity in India in 2023, and incremental night-time cooling demand can be addressed to minimise the need for conventional, more expensive, and less environment-friendly battery storage systems, thus bringing a sustainable vision for grid-independent buildings, campuses or even townships one step closer.
Vishal Garg, Professor and Director, Indorama Ventures Center for Clean Energy, Plaksha University says: “We are committed to leading the transition to sustainable energy through cutting-edge research and comprehensive educational programmes. A significant challenge in achieving our decarbonization goals is the energy consumption in residential cooling. We believe that thermal storage, in combination with district cooling, holds great potential to overcome this challenge. To realize this potential, extensive research is necessary to develop innovative technologies, effective business models and supportive policies that also consider human-centric design and behavioral factors. Our collaboration with Tabreed India is a crucial step towards initiating this essential research.”
About Plaksha University:
Founded by a global community of more than 100 technology and business leaders, Plaksha envisions reimagining technology education and research for India and the world. With strong partnerships with UC Berkeley, Purdue, UC San Diego, IIT Kanpur, and IISc Bengaluru, Plaksha aims to nurture and empower a generation of catalytic leaders and create an ecosystem of research and innovation. The university collapses the traditional boundaries of engineering and promotes interdisciplinary learning by combining technology, design and entrepreneurship.
Plaksha is guided by an eminent academic board including Dr. Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering, University of Pennsylvania; Venkatesh Narayanamurthi, former Dean of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Sriram Rajamani, Managing Director, Microsoft Research India; Julia Ross, Dean of Engineering, Virginia Tech; Krishna Palepu, Ross Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; Sanjay Sarma, Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering, MIT; and business leaders such as Neeraj Aggarwal, Chairman – Asia Pacific, BCG; Hitesh Oberoi, Co-promoter & CEO, Info Edge (Naukri.com); Srikanth Velamakanni, Co-founder, Fractal Analytics; Manas Fuloria, Co- Founder, Nagarro; Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman, Bharti Enterprises; Navin Chaddha, Managing Director, Mayfield Fund; Sujeet Kumar, Co-founder, Udaan.com; Dalip Pathak, Special Limited Partner, Warburg Pincus LLC; CP Gurnani, MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra; Pramod Bhasin, Chairman, Clix Capital among others. Corporate donors include companies like Bharti Foundation, Havells, HT Parekh Foundation, Mphasis, Axis Bank and Motilal Oswal. The global community of business leaders who founded Plaksha can be seen here.