IIT-Madras powers Rajasthan villages with game-changer tech

CHENNAI: The highest recorded temperature in India — 51°C — scorched Phalodi in Rajasthan recently. Piling on the misery, the village did not even have power supply. But now, a few houses have got power supply, thanks to an out-of-the-box solution provided by researchers from IIT Madras. The researchers installed a 1-sqm solar panel on rooftops and used lead acid batteries to store power. The game-changer was power-efficient devices that run on direct current. “Each household was given a fan, tubelight and cellphone charger carefully designed for high efficiency,” says Prabhjot Kaur, one of the team members.

What made the IIT-M successful in electrifying the Rajasthan village was the idea to run electrical appliances using direct current (DC), while the omnipresent standard in the country was alternative current (AC).

The qualitative difference in the forms of electricity has allowed the researchers to increase the efficiency of the power consumption by specially designed devices.

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