IIT Roorkee confers HRED Hydro and Renewable Energy Award upon professor Arun Kumar

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, has awarded the HRED Hydro and Renewable Energy Award to professor Arun Kumar, hydro and renewable energy department at IIT Roorkee. Kumar is also the NEEPCO chair professor and a board member of the International Hydropower Association.

The HRED Hydro and Renewable Energy Award is presented to those individuals who have contributed towards "hydro resource assessment, optimization, integration, new technology development area, among others."

Also read | National Medical Commission removes upper age limit for NEET UG 2022

Kumar is a founding scientist of HRED at IIT Roorkee and served as the head of the department from 1998 to 2011. He has also served as coordinating lead author for IPCC special report on renewable energy and as an independent director on board of NHPC Ltd.

“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 decarbonisation target,” said Ajit K Chaturvedi, director of IIT Roorkee.

Also read | Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham MBA students placed with Rs 6.74 lakh average salary; Rs 19.17 lakh highest

“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,” said Kumar.