Welcome to the Energy Storage Laboratory.

Energy Storage Laboratory of Centre for Energy Studies, SPPU:

With the vision of contributing to sustainable development of India with adoption of clean and green energy alternatives, the Centre for Energy Studies has established a dedicated Energy Storage Laboratory. Energy storage is an attractive tool to adopt intermittent renewable energy sources and prefer distributed energy generation for smart grid systems. The focus of the laboratory is battery technologies of the present as well as future. Electrochemical storage technologies are supposed to provide solutions to decentralized units as well as to stationary use.

In the energy storage lab, we study the behaviour of different chemistries of lithium-ion batteries for their performance under different operating conditions. The data generated in operation under different conditions is used to create models, new test procedures, controls, and design systems. The performance data is used for estimation of state-of-charge (SOC) and state-of-health (SOH). The modelling and accurately predicting the performance parameters are dealt in depth. Thus, our lab combines mechanical design and analysis, electrical design, thermodynamics, heat transfer, energy systems, and machine shop skills to build practical systems. For a detailed view of scope of laboratory, check the publication section from our laboratory and also see our projects below. We do not manufacture lithium-ion batteries in our laboratory.

We also work on zinc-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, aluminium-ion batteries for fundamental perspectives and new developments.

The hydrogen is most suitable among the favourable energy carriers for use in all practical uses. The advantages of hydrogen include high energy efficiency, overwhelming environmental and social benefits, economic competitiveness, as well as better candidate in energy security perspective. The hydrogen is the The chalcogenide family of semiconducting materials have found real-life mainstream industry scale application for energy harvesting and some more of this family are under exploration by researchers worldwide.

As the hydrogen is a favourable energy carrier, the developments for green hydrogen are underway worldwide. In photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, hydrogen is produced from water using sunlight and specialized semiconductors called photoelectrochemical materials, which use light energy to directly dissociate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. We also work on photoelectrochemical water splitting at the energy storage laboratory of CES, SPPU.

Fuel cells are one more practical applications of use of hydrogen and related energy carriers to generate electricity. The Energy Storage laboratory also focuses on the fuel cell applications. Presently we work on PEM fuel cells.

For latest research publications from energy storage laboratory please visit our research publication section or social media handles.

Ongoing Projects at Energy Storage Laboratory are:

  1. Synthesis and Study of Polyanionic and Alloy Electrode Materials for Sodium Ion Battery.

  2. Investigation and Study of 2D materials for Electrochemical Energy Storage Application: Emphasis on MXenes.

  3. Large Scale and Long Duration Energy Storage System by using Liquid Air Energy Storage System (LAES).

  4. All-Iron Redox Flow Battery: Research Design and Demonstration for 5.0W Capacity.

  5. Design and Optimization for Improving Cooling Performance in Lithium-ion Battery module of Battery Thermal Management System.

  6. Application of Binary, Ternary, and Quaternary Chalcogenide materials for aqueous Zn-ion battery.

  7. Performance Analysis of Solar Photovoltaic Systems for Micro-grid and Off-Grid Application.

  8. Development of Algorithm for State of Charge (SOC) estimation of Lithium-ion battery pack and State of Health (SOH) prediction of Li-ion battery pack.

  9. Testing of batteries and battery packs for off-grid solar PV systems as per relevant IS, ISO, and IEC standards.


Solar Photovoltaics Laboratory of Centre for Energy Studies, SPPU:

Recently, India stands 4th in solar PV deployment across the globe as on end of 2021. Solar power installed capacity has reached around 61.97 GW as on December 2022. Presently, solar tariff in India is very competitive and has achieved grid parity. This is very convivial time for wide adoption of solar photovoltaics in India for both adoption of renewable energy and saving on energy cost. The Centre for Energy Studies focuses on system engineering of Solar Photovoltaic Systems. We have the design softwares like PVSyst, (© Pvsyst SA, Switzerland), PV*SOL (©Valentin Software) etc. for designing and design validation of solar PV Systems.

We also offer consultancy services for solar PV system engineering like preparation of detailed project report (DPR), design validation, third party assessment of PV system performance, pv plant health audit, services as owner’s engineer, PV system I-V measurement of modules and strings etc. We have dedicated and calibrated pyranometers, I-V measurement devices, Electrical Power Quality Measurement devices, Power Loggers, Inverter performance testers etc.

Major Projects carried out:

  1. Canal Top solar Photovoltaic Power Plant’s Plant Health Audit / Performance Audit (1 MW).

  2. Design and installation of 500 kWp rooftop Solar PV System

  3. Owner’s engineer (Technical consultant) for government offices (Zilla Parishad, District Collector etc.) for system sizes of 100 kWp.

Training Programs and Workshops:

The Centre for Energy Studies conducts frequently the training programs, workshops on:

  1. Lithium-ion battery technology,

  2. Solar Photovoltaic System design, installation and commissioning

  3. Hydrogen Energy Technology

  4. Certificate course in Electric Vehicles and Charging Infrastructure

We believe in hands-on trainings and workshop hence limit the batch size of each training program or workshop to 30 participants. On demand training program and workshops can also be provided for group of participants. Please contact the department by email / phone for further details. hodenergy@unipune.ac.in/ energyunipune@gmail.com or + 91 20 2562 1013

For latest scheduled workshops and training programs please follow the news and announcement section of Centre for Energy Studies, SPPU website.