IIT Roorkee felicitates Prof. Arun Kumar with HRED Hydro & Renewable Energy Award
· Hydropower: True partner for energy de-carbonisation
Roorkee : Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee), honors Prof. Arun Kumar, Hydro and Renewable Energy, IIT Roorkee, at HRED auditorium, IIT Roorkee. The award recognizes and celebrates the contribution of researchers who are working in the subject covering hydro resource assessment, optimization, integration, new technology development area, among others.
Prof. Arun Kumar is currently working as Professor of HRED, IIT Roorkee, NEEPCO Chair Professor and board member of International Hydropower Association. He has been the founding scientist of HRED and has served as its head from 1998 to 2011. Under his leadership, HRED grew into the center of excellence in the field of Small Hydropower (SHP) with domestic and international recognition. He has served as coordinating lead author for IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy and Independent Director on Board of NHPC Ltd.
On conferring the award, Prof. Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee, said, “With over 40 years of contributions to hydropower and environmental management of lakes and rivers, Prof. Arun Kumar is widely acclaimed in the hydropower field. He is indeed a worthy recipient of this award. Prof Arun Kumar’s work is aligned to the efforts of Government of India to meet its ambitious de-carbonisation target.”
While explaining the importance of Hydropower, Prof. Arun Kumar, Hydro and Renewable Energy, IIT Roorkee, remarks, “The nationally determined contribution target of non-fossil energy capacity of 500 GW by 2030 and net zero carbon emissions by 2070 with renewable energy sources introduces uncertainty in generation output on the scale of seconds, hours and days due to characteristic weather fluctuations. Thus, storage based hydro plants are highly useful for facilitating the integration of high variable solar and wind power into the power system. The benefits of hydropower other than electricity are to be monetized to make the true partner in energy decarbonization.”