Specialization

Power Systems

Email

parag@thapar.edu

Biography

Dr. Parag Nijhawan is working with Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala since 2001. He has more than 23 years of academic experience. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, and M.E. Electrical (Power Systems) from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. His research interests include Power Quality, Custom Power, FACTS devices, Renewable Energy Solutions and Grounding. He has more than 100 publications in the national and international journals and conferences. He has guided around 50 M.E. students and 3 Ph.D. students. His vision statement is as follows:

“To be a good learner, a good teacher and above all, a good human being known for inspiring my students to be more than what they thought they could be; through my methodical, logical and analytical approach but of course, without compromising on the ethical and social values with an ultimate objective of contributing my bit towards sustainable environment.”

Education

1. Ph.D. in Power Quality and Custom Power from / National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra / in 2016
2. M. Tech in Electrical (Power Systems) from / Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh / in 2001
3. B.E. in Electrical from /GZSCET, Bathinda / in 1999

Experience: Total Teaching Experience X years

1. From August 2000 – September 2001: Lecturer, EE Department,  SSIET, Derabassi
2. From September 2001 – December 2005: Lecturer, EIE Department,  TIET, Patiala
3. From January 2006 – July 2019, Assistant Professor, EIE Department,  TIET, Patiala
4. From August 2019 – Till date, Associate Professor, EIE Department,  TIET, Patiala

Teaching Interests:

1. Network Theory and Design
2. Electromagnetic Field Theory
3. Power Quality and Custom Power
4. FACTS Devices
5. Power System Analysis
6. Power System Operation and Control
7. Transmission and Distribution of Power System

Research Interest:

1. Renewable Energy Systems
2. Power Quality
3. Custom Power
4. Grounding

Current membership in professional organizations

• IEEE Member, IE(I) - Fellow and Chartered Engineer

Honors and awards

• Runner’s up of BRICS YEA, 2020
• Winners of BRICS YEA, 2019

Service activities (within and outside of the institution)

• Chairman, Time-Table Committee, Thapar-Trinity Academic Fellow, NBA Coordinator, NSS Programme Coordinator, NSS Programme Officer, Laboratory Incharge (EE Lab, PSS Lab, HV Lab), Organized IEEE Conference IICPE-2016, 17 Expert Lectures Delivered, Organized National Conference ICTEE-2014

Publications:

Journals

1. Sharma M.; Nijhawan P.; Sinha A. “Enhanced energy management through BESS controllers in industrial rooftop solar PV systems: A case study analysis” Electric Power Systems Research, 248, 11920, 2025.   
2. M. K. Singla, J. Gupta, M. Safaraliev, P. Nijhawan, and A. S. Oberoi, "Hydrogen storage in activated carbon for fuel cell-powered vehicles: A cost-effective and sustainable approach," Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, Elsevier, pp. 446-458, 2024.
3. M. K. Singla, J. Gupta, P. Nijhawan, M. H. Alsharif, and M.-K. Kim, "Sustainable development of fuel cell using enhanced weighted mean of vectors algorithm," Heliyon, Cell Press, pp. 1-36, 2023
4. M. Sharma, P. Nijhawan, and A. Sinha, "Techno-economic comparative analysis of hybrid renewable energy systems with and without battery energy storage system," Int. J. Green Energy, Taylor & Francis, pp. 1-27, 2023.
5. M. K. Singla, J. Gupta, B. Singh, P. Nijhawan, A. Y. Abdelaziz, and A. El-Shahat, "Parameter estimation of fuel cells using a hybrid optimization algorithm," Sustainability, MDPI, pp. 1-21, 2023.
6. M. K. Singla, J. Gupta, P. Nijhawan, A. S. Oberoi, M. H. Alsharif, and A. Jahid, "Role of a unitized regenerative fuel cell in remote area power supply: a review," Energies, vol. 16, no. 15, p. 5761, pp. 1-21, 2023.
7. M. K. Singla, M. H. Hassan, J. Gupta, F. Jurado, P. Nijhawan, and S. Kamel, "An enhanced efficient optimization algorithm (EINFO) for accurate extraction of proton exchange membrane fuel cell parameters," Soft Comput., pp. 1-20, 2023.
8. B. Singh, M. K. Singla, and P. Nijhawan, "Parameter estimation of four diode solar photovoltaic cell using hybrid algorithm," Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, Taylor & Francis, pp. 4597-4613, 2022.
9. B. Singh, P. Nijhawan, M. K. Singla, J. Gupta, and P. Singh, "Hybrid algorithm for parameter estimation of fuel cell," Int. J. Energy Res., Hindawi, pp. 1-12, 2022
10. J. Gupta, P. Nijhawan, and S. Ganguli, "Optimal sizing of different configuration of photovoltaic, fuel cell, and biomass-based hybrid energy system," Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res., Springer Nature, pp. 17425-17440, 2022.
11. Parag Nijhawan, Ravinder Singh Bhatia and Dinesh Kumar Jain.; Improved performance of multilevel inverter based DSTATCOM with induction furnace load." IET Power Electronics 6(9) 2013: 1939-1947.
12. Amandeep Singh Oberoi, Parag Nijhawan and Parminder Singh; A novel electrochemical hydrogen storage-based Proton Battery for renewable energy storage." Energies 12(1) 2019: 1-15.
13. Diksha Kapoor, Amandeep Singh Oberoi and Parag Nijhawan; HydrogenpProduction and subsequent adsorption/desorption process within a modified unitized regenerative fuel cell." Processes 7 2019: 1-19.
14. Sourav Dhiman and Parag Nijhawan. " Design & analysis of improved bus-tied photovoltaic system for marine ships; Indian Journal of Geo Marine Sciences 48(12) 2019: 1963-1970.
15. Parag Nijhawan, Ravinder Singh Bhatia and Dinesh Kumar Jain.; Analysis of different control methods of Z-Source inverters feeding induction furnace load International Review of Automatic Control 7(2) 2014: 166-175.
16.  Manish Kumar Singla, Parag Nijhawan, Amandeep Singh Oberoi, Parminder Singh; Application of Levenberg Marquardt algorithm for Short Term Load Forecasting: a theoretical investigation." Pertanika Journal of Science and Technology 27(3) 2019: 1227-1245.
17. Parag Nijhawan, Ravinder Singh Bhatia and Dinesh Kumar Jain; Application of PI controller based DSTATCOM for improving the power quality in a power system network with induction furnace load; Songklanakarin Journal of Science and Technology 34(2) 2012: 195-201.
18. Parag Nijhawan.; A novel approach for simulation of transmission line compensation; International Journal of Engineering and Technology 2(5) 2010: 336-342.

Sponsored Project

1. “A Smart Wearable Device for Cognitive Assessment”, supervised by (PI/CoPI) received a Grant of amount Rs 5.5 lacs by Priority Solutions, Mohali for the year 2018-2020.

International Conferences:

Rashmi Rai, R.S. Bhatia and Parag Nijhawan. Z-Source Inverter based DC-DC Converter using SPWM Technique for Fuel Cell Application. IEEE First International Conference on Power Electronics, Intelligent Control and Energy Systems (IEEE ICPEICES 2016) from July 04 – 06, 2016 at Delhi Technology University.

Parag Nijhawan, R.S. Bhatia and D.K Jain. Performance Analysis of 3-Phase 17-Level Inverter Based DSTATCOM Feeding Induction Furnace Load. IEEE 7th IICPE-2016 Conference, 17-19 Nov., 2016, Thapar University, Patiala. 

Achievement, Awards and Recognitions

1. Adjudged winners in BRICS Youth Energy Agency Summit, 2019 in Moscow, Russia.
2. Adjudged runners-up in BRICS Youth Energy Agency Summit, 2020 in Moscow, Russia.

Message to Students & Community

You are never a loser until you quit trying.