This year's IGCS Winter School took place in Chennai, India, from February 24 to March 7, 2018, on the topic of Smart Grids - Sustainable Integration of Renewable Energy Sources for the Energy Grids of Tomorrow. Around 30 German and Indian students discussed solutions to the above question as part of project work, which were presented at a final conference at the end of the Winter School. The project work was supplemented by content from Indian and German lecturers.
Prof. Dr. Stefan Kornhuber was able to give an insight into the research activities of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and present key points for the projects in his presentation on high-voltage insulation systems under stress with high DC voltage, interfaces and foreign layer flashover.

The Indo-German Centre for Sustainability, IGCS for short, was opened in 2010 on the initiative of the German and Indian governments in Chennai, India, at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras Indian Institute of Technology Madras .

In addition to the IIT Madras, the TU9 Universities and the Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel (CAU) are also involved in the project.

RWTH Aachen University, whose partnership with IIT Madras dates back to 1959, is responsible for organizing the center on the German side.