Dr Scott Watskins speaks about perovskites: absorbing materials can be used in an organic solar power. They act as the light absorbing part of the cells but can also transmit the charges. The exciting part about this is that they are dramatically more efficient than previous thin film solar cell technology. He demonstrates his work …
“Energy is a prerequisite for sustainable rural development” – UNESCO Smart Villages pitches its vision for rural communities with the aim of developing villages primarily in the areas of education, enterprise and health. It promotes the use of off-grid energy, mainly powered by sustainable means, as an alternative to being isolated from the national grid. …
Jorge Moreno Kean Ng Songqiao Yao Taskeen Adam The team seeks to utilise off-grid electricity to implement a pilot project in Sierra Leone aimed at improving the livelihoods and incomes of small scale farmers by processing fresh tomatoes into canned tomato paste, a high value added product in the country. With a population of more …
Adam Hamilton David Pepper Duncan McNicholl Noura Wahby Samantha Passmore Despite ongoing innovation, technology developers often do not know potential customers in developing countries. This gap hinders appropriate technology development. ‘Next Billion Research’ (NBR) targets this gap by facilitating direct customer feedback, and gathers information on product distribution in developing countries. NBR takes technologies and …
Taskeen Adam, Department of Engineering, MPhil David Bowly, Department of Engineering, MPhil Jaspreet Singh, Department of Engineering, MPhil Kerstin Göpfrich, Department of Physics, PhD 2nd year Moni K. Gupta, Department of Chemistry, PhD 3rd year Kysen Palmer, Department of Physics, PhD 3rd year Tayyab Safdar, Centre of Development Studies The Mobile Education for Smart Technology …
Hajime Shinohara (Physics (Winton Scholar), PhD, 2nd Mike Coto (Materials Science and Metallurgy, PhD 3rd One of the most urgent problems facing off-grid communities is lack of clean drinking water. Globally approximately 2000 people die every day due to lack of access to clean water. Companies and NGOs have tried to purify water in off-grid …
Water purification and testing in off-grid communities Read More »
Steffen Illig, University of Cambridge, Physics, PhD 3rd Year Luis Miguel Pazos Outón, University of Cambridge, Physics, PhD 2nd Year Flora Ponjou Tasse, University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory, PhD 3rd Year Sara Serradas Duarte, University of Cambridge, Neuroscience, PhD 3rd Year Can biogas solve the problems of deforestation, sanitation and lack of access to energy …
Cambridge University graduates in science, technology, engineering, humanities and social sciences were invited to apply for one of an initial 20 places at a New Year Forum on 12th January 2015, sponsored by the Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centre, Smart Villages and the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability. The purpose of the Forum was …
Yoshiki Tsukamoto, Judge Business School, Master of Business Administration, 1st year Glen Whitehead, Judge Business School, Master in Technology Policy, 1st year The project, Study on Advanced Measures for Mosquito Control by Insecticide Vaporisers, aims to examine the feasibility of utilising insecticide vaporisers to enhance mosquito control in rural Republic of Kenya (hereinafter Kenya). The …
Study on Advanced Measures for Mosquito Control by Insecticide Vaporisers Read More »
The Smart Villages Initiative, working with its local partner Practical Action Consulting South Asia, held a workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal on 10th April 2015. The aim of the workshop was to learn lessons from Nepal’s experience of micro/mini-hydroelectric schemes for off-grid rural communities and associated initiatives to stimulate productive enterprises which could be shared with …
WR5: Smart Villages in Nepal: Kathmandu Workshop Report Read More »
The European Union has unveiled plans to support new energy schemes in Africa. The partnership with Paris-based private equity firm Astor Capital Partners will support around 20 SME’s involved in off-grid and decentralised energy production. The Electricity Access Fund aims to invest €55 million over five years, with €10 million of the fund’s capital coming …
EU drive energy access through ‘blending’ grants Read More »
The Smart Villages Initiative together with its local partner, Practical Action Consulting South Asia, held a workshop in Kathmandu on 10th April 2015 to consider off-grid energy systems in Nepal. The workshop focused on Nepal’s substantial experience of micro/mini-hydro schemes, and on initiatives to stimulate productive enterprises enabled by the availability of sustainable electricity supplies. …
BR3: Findings from the Nepal Smart Villages Workshop Read More »
Off-grid renewable energy systems are expanding rapidly on the ground to service the needs of more than one billion people worldwide who lack access to electricity. Change is driven by declining costs and increasing performance for small hydro installations, solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind turbines, as well improved technologies for electricity storage and control. However, …
Smart Villages and Practical Action Consulting off-grid village energy workshop in Nepal highlights key role of mini-hydro schemes In the latest of a series of workshops across the SE Asia region, the Smart Villages Initiative and Practical Action Consulting brought together a diverse cross-section of participants in the Nepali off-grid energy sector. The Smart Villages …
Off-grid village energy workshop in Nepal highlights key role of mini-hydro schemes Read More »
The aim of the Smart Villages Kathmandu workshop will be to learn lessons from the Nepalese experience in off-grid energy provision to rural communities that will be of interest, and potential relevance, to other countries in the South Asia region. The workshop will focus on the conditions necessary to ensure development benefits flow from energy access …
We are poised on the brink of a unique moment the history of electricity supply where decentralised networks are set to rapidly expand, fulfilling the needs of the worlds poor. This is the bold conclusion from a group of researchers based at Berkeley, lead by Dr. Dan Kammen. Their recent perspective piece, published in Nature …
Approximately 360 million people in India lack adequate access to grid-electricity and another 20 million households receive less than four hours of electricity per day. To help close this gap, the Government of India has set a target of generating 100 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2022. But while grid connectivity is expected to improve …
The Smart Villages Energy Innovation Challenge, launching today, challenges young East African entrepreneurs to form teams and come up with imaginative ways of distributing or implementing novel or existing energy technologies for off-grid villages. Each team should include one engineer or scientist. The teams with the best entries will win a spot in the Cambridge …
Universal electricity access – one of the targets of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative for 2030 – will remain unachievable unless countries adopt a market-based approach to off-grid renewable energy deployment. This report highlights key findings and recommendations of the Second International Off-grid Renewable Energy Conference (IOREC 2014), organised by the International Renewable …
Accelerating off-grid renewable energy (IOREC 2014: Key Findings and Recommendations) Read More »
Up to five teams will be chosen to progress through an eight-week business training programme based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to develop and test their idea, build it into a full business plan and receive academic credit for practical training. In the final week of the training, finalists will pitch their business plan to a panel …