E-Governance for Solar Photo Voltaic Powergrid: Solar City Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

Abstract

Energy generation, distribution and consumption include different personnel at various hierarchical levels such as Production, Transmission and Distribution, Billing, Corporate, including the End User or Consumer. Enabling simple, userfriendly, reliable, efficient, timely and seamless connectivity to critical information to all such personnel remains the most desirable feature and benchmark for Smart City. Reliable availability of critical data on timely basis in desired formats for different decision-making authorities plays key role for successful e-Governance of energy distribution systems. Emerging approaches based on hybrid communication technologies possess capability to transform the present ones into smart, intelligent and adaptive sites and could become basis of exploring more options including anytime– anywhere monitoring in future. Welcome to be the part of transition of epoch and total paradigm shift in the domain of electricity utility services! E-Governance system for Smart City could be well defined as System of Systems, wherein E-Governance of Energy Generation and Distribution functions as vital source of power. Solar photovoltaic (SPV) is the proven method of electricity generation with significant sustainable future potential. Grid-tied PV rooftop system is gaining worldwide acceptance as one of the most widely accepted models for wide-scale deployment due to their simplicity, ease of installation, operation, maintenance, scalability, etc. E-Governance of powergrid implies the responsible and accountable delivery of electrical power assisted or supported by communication devices providing efficient and effective communication between Government to Government (G2G), Business to Employee (B2E), Business to Government (B2G), Business to Citizen (B2C) and finally, Government to Citizen (G2C). Globally, today many cities are adapting e-Governance for enhancement of utility services and improved citizen convenience. Gandhinagar has emerged as the city in India taking leadership in application of advanced hybrid communication technologies and thereby transforming itself into Smart City. Earlier Gandhinagar has been facing frequent power shortages as well as demand–supply fluctuations causing not only inconvenience, but also resulting in large work losses and production losses as well as chaotic situations. With the untiring efforts of visionary and inspirational leadership of Gujarat-India on political-diplomatic-administrative fronts and initiatives such as Gandhinagar Rooftop Photovoltaic Programme, Solar City—Smart Grid Project, etc., have been implemented with efficient, effective and citizen-friendly objectives, wherein Solar Policy of Gujarat state has been of immense support. For sustainable growth and enhanced lifestyle of citizens, reliable and affordable power is a mandatory requirement and Gandhinagar city administration has been doing its best to approach every citizen through hybrid communication network, especially for power distribution and thereby resulting in strong trustworthy relationship of citizens with the government. Today, Gandhinagar is considered to be one of the most advanced and world-class self-reliant city having most resilient power infrastructure in India. Well-planned, systematically designed, and customer-oriented power distribution network encouraging participation of citizens has played key role in making Gandhinagar more liveable and a place to stay today. Complete Gandhinagar has been geographically distributed into separate zones, interested citizens are invited to express their willingness to participate in the programmes and after completion of formalities including registration, document verification, etc., scope and size of SPV installations are fixed up. Commercial aspects such as subsidy, revenue sharing and billing details are worked out on actual basis. Using seamless data connectivity using GUIs based on GPS, GIS and Virtual Instrumentation, real-time data of generation and consumption have been availed to the end user for determination and implementation of his real-time choice to run important equipments, if any. This chapter also includes descriptions on hybrid communication technologies deployed to timely serve need-based information. Remote Energy Parameter Monitoring System using Hybrid Communication Technologies for Solar Photovoltaic Energy Generation System for Gandhinagar Solar City has also been presented. The chapter ends with discussion over transformation of Solar City into Smart City.