Technology Transfer

Technology transfer helps to develop early stage intellectual property into tools for direct use by the research community, or into bases for new platforms for developing products for industrial and societal requirement through team building.

• Efforts are being taken to translate the research outcome into various products. The outcome of research are transferred efficiently to various communities by serving as consultant to industries and also through patent Registration.
  
  
• Successful collaborations are formed between researchers across different universities or industries in order to advance the knowledge in a particular field or to further develop a technology.
  

  (i) Through Patent registration.
  
  (ii) As Consultant to Industries
  
  (iii) Through joint project with other institutions.

(i) Patent Registration

The innovations that arises from the research are patented now. More than 10 patents are registered in the field of

• Cool Thermal Storage System
  
  
• Solar PV Integration.
  
  
• Energy Efficient Buildings
  
  
• Compressed air energy storage.

These published patents are in the initial stage of commercialization.

(ii) As Consultant to Industries

Technology transfer made as consultant to Industries

Impact made through biomass resource assessment study

Biomass as a source of energy is gaining importance as a renewable source that is additionally strengthened as agriculture is one of the prime players for the economic growth. In this connection, District wise Biomass assessment study for Tamil Nadu, sponsored TEDA was carried out during the year 2010. This work was coordinated by me and the report submitted was made as a book based on the request from TEDA and is now owned by TEDA. These assessment studies created a lot of impact and brought awareness among many entrepreneurs, and resulted in approximately 131 MW of Biomass based power generation in Tamil Nadu and a further 229 MW of approval granted by TEDA for new power plants. In the last few years, with several developments in the country, more particularly with initiatives of MNRE, Govt. of India and the continuous efforts of TEDA, Tamil Nadu has reached a leadership status in the biomass utilization for clean power generation in line with wind energy generation.

• The biomass resource data for all districts of Tamil Nadu was consolidated and it acts as a benchmark for the investors to identify the suitable and potentially stable location for the investors.
  
  
• Biomass resource study has stimulated the growth in farming, forestry and rural industry leading to overall rural development. This intensive study has also provided a productive avenue for using agricultural and forestry wastes, besides plantations.
  
  
• Further, increased energy plantation has lot of derived benefits to the environment in the coming years.
  
  
• The outcome of this report is being used as a guideline for sanctioning biomass based power plants in Tamil Nadu by TEDA.
  

Industries benefitted by our Technology

• Sun Best, Theni
  
  The heat transfer co-efficient of the solar air heating systems manufactured by Sun Best was enhanced with my recommendation. This has provided an energy efficiency enhancement of 10%, resulting appreciable energy saving and financial benefits. This new concept is introduced in all their solar air heating systems since 2010 by this company. Every year this company is producing 600 m2 solar air heater and higher efficiency is achieved. Further to utilize the solar energy even after the sunshine hours a research project titled “Phase Change material based thermal storage system for solar air heating applications” an Indo-German Co-operation Project, funded by DST BMBF was executed in collaboration with this company.
  
  
  
• PLUSS Polymers, New Delhi
  
  Established Good contact with PLUSS polymers, New Delhi, who is the major producer of Phase Change Material (PCM) in our country. With their association; a national workshop has been organized in the year 2009 at Anna University inviting various stakeholder to whom this storage technology is very useful. Nearly 100 participants from the industries have attended this workshop. During the last 3 to 4 years this company has started using PCM for various applications and their annual turnover has been increased several folds. Due to the increased use of renewable sources and in the promotion of Green building in the country my research contribution is also playing a major role in their new product developments for various applications. Recently a project proposal titled ‘Development of functional phase change material for cool storage applications’ in collaboration with this company submitted to Department of Science & Technology, New Delhi is recommended by Project approval board for the grant of Rs 50 Lakhs and awaiting for final approval.

(iii) Through joint project with other institutions. (As Principal Investigator)

(a) A technology introduction of Renewable based smart microgrid with hybrid energy storage

Title of the Project : “Sustainable energy technologies - efficient renewable power generation with energy storage for sustainable smart grid”

Funding body      : Ministry of Human Resources Department (MHRD) under research and innovation scheme.

Fund Sanctioned : Rs. 15 Crores

Project Partners  : Anna University, Annamalai University, Bharathiyar University,
                           Periyar University, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University,
                           Madras University, Alagappa University and Bharathidasan University.

To overcome power challenges faced by the rural population, the Institute for Energy Studies, Anna University (AU) is leading a research project, where villages can completely switch over to distributed sources of energy without any power cuts or disruptions by exploring the concept of smart renewable energy based microgrid with energy storage system.


The performance enhancement of solar cell is being investigated by most of the Universities. One of the major focus of this research project is generating cool energy through distributed renewable power in promoting the cold chain in rural area. Besides electrifying homes and offices, the energy generated can be used to preserve dairy and food products in villages where air-conditioning facilities are inadequate.


Anna University is in the process of demonstrating a microgrid with power generation from solar and wind power integration with hybrid energy storage system. This will pave way for independent power generation and utilization through microgrid concept eliminating the dependency of grid power.


(b) Development of User friendly simulation tool – A new effort on developing a software for the benefit of stakeholders in building sector.


Title of the Project: “User Friendly Simulation tool development through experimental validation for the integration of Phase change material (PCM) in energy efficient buildings for thermal management”

Funding body      : Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Fund Sanctioned : Rs. 85.67 Lakhs

Project Partner    : Anna University, Easwari Engineering College, Meenakshi Engineering College

Buildings are highly energy intensive sectors due to the rapid urbanization in our country. The present light weight buildings have very low heat storage capacity and hence the peak shaving could not be accommodated by the building wall elements. Instead of massive building, introduction of PCM is considered as the best option. There is a resistance among the Architects and consultant for using PCM in the buildings due to difficulty in analysing the performance of the PCM in the buildings at various seasons of the year. The phase change problem being a transient phenomenon during the entire charging and discharging period the modelling and solving is complex and are new for building engineers. Creating a simple model from complex simulation will reduce the burden of new users to implement PCM in the buildings. The present project is initiated towards the objective of introducing PCM in the buildings of the future and to provide user friendly analysis tool for the building designers. The novelty of the present work is developing a simulation tool towards designing the PCM integration in building using building simulation software in a simple way.