Dr. Shibani Khanra Jha, Assistant professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India

Biography: Dr. Shibani Khanra Jha is Assistant Professor at Civil Engineering Department of Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India. She earned her PhD and MSc (Engg) degree from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India after her BE in Civil Engineering from Jadavpur University, India. She is lifetime member of Institute of Engineers, India. Her doctoral research was on analytical and numerical modeling of complex multiphase flow processes in geological environments, especially in porous and fractured reservoir. Her areas of interests are numerical modelling of multiphase-multicomponent flow through porous reservoir, modelling of geothermal reservoir, groundwater flow and contaminant transport modelling, reservoir engineering, field study of soil resistivity. Currently, she is involved in studying the prospects of geothermal energy among all renewable sources; conceptual, numerical and mathematical modelling of geothermal reservoir and its extraction potential; reservoir characterization as thermo-hydro-geological parameters; numerical models to prioritize renewable sources and geothermal source locations.

Research Interest: Numerical Modeling, Multiphase-multicomponent flow though porous media, Modelling of geothermal reservoir, Groundwater flow and contaminant transport, Soil resistivity modelling

Speech Title: Numerical Approach to Prioritize Renewable Energy Alternatives and Source Locations to Predict the Future Prospects

Abstract: The exploitation of renewable energy sources is inevitable due to the ever increasing demand and adverse influence of nonrenewable energy sources. Currently, Wind, Solar, Hydro, Biomass, and Waste & Bagasse are exploited as conventional sources of renewable energies in many countries. Geothermal source is also an alternative in renewable category, however it is still nonconventional. Since all the renewable alternatives may not be available at all the locations and all the locations may not have similar potential for a chosen alternative, it is suggested to prioritize the sources and source locations for the exploitation. This study discusses various techno economic, environmental and socio economic criteria influencing these alternatives. Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) is adopted to develop the numerical algorithm in evaluating priority indices to rank these alternative sources and source locations. The energy index, reflecting normalized cumulative score, finds the ranking among Geothermal, Hydro, Wind, Biomass and Solar alternatives (Jha Shibani K and Puppala Harish, Energy, 2017). Based on the prioritization of the sources, the study considers geothermal locations as alternatives to be evaluated. Each source location is evaluated for various influencing criteria's like useful resource base, Areal extent, Minimum-Maximum temperature, Utilization score, Cumulative discharge of thermal springs, Minimum-Maximum electrical resistivity and Representative reservoir temperature. These source locations are ranked based on their priority index (Puppala Harish and Jha Shibani K, Renewable Energy, 2018). The prioritization of the sources and source locations would help in planning further developmental works by selecting proper renewable source and source location.

Keywords: Renewable Energy Sources, Geothermal Energy, Priority Index, Alternatives, Criteria, Numerical Approach, Fuzzy AHP, Source Locations