SUSTENANCE PROJECT MEETING IN INDIA, February 2024
The H2020 “SUSTENANCE & RE-EMPOWERED Joint Project Workshop on carbon neutral sustainable energy systems” (Fig. 1) kicked-off the latest project gathering for SUSTENANCE on 6-8 February 2024 in India.
Fig. 1 SUSTENANCE and RE-EMPOWERED delegates from EU and India at the networking workshop in the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay (IITB), 6.02.2024.
The EU partners of SUSTENANCE travelled from Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland to India to visit two of the three Indian project demonstration sites. First, partners were given a guided tour around the campus of IITB. This included a visit to the SHUNYA SMART building where researchers explained how they were testing the inter-operability of the smart electrical building and India’s first vehicle to grid car (Fig 2).
Fig. 2 The V2G car being tested at the Shunya building at IITB, India (Joanna Ptak, 2024).
There were also demonstrations of the prototypes that have been developed in the project. Partners could examine the EV chargers, e-rickshaw (Fig. 3) and the multi-utility heat pump and wind turbine that have been specifically designed for the Sustenance project.
Fig. 3 Prototype of an e-rickshaw at IITB in Bombay (Birgitte-Bak Jensen, 2024).
The last day of the SUSTENANCE meeting in India was devoted to visiting another of the Indian demonstration sites, Barubeda village (Fig.4 a,b). Barubeda is located in the state of Jharkhan and is a rural tribal village with limited connection to the electrical grid. The core income source of the villagers is agriculture. There is limited access to water in general, and clean water in particular. The village does not have access to any public transportation, and the inhabitants generally walk over 3 kms to reach the nearest road. Therefore Barubeda village is in dire need of a stable energy supply and thus the inhabitants are keen to establish a local sustainable energy system.
Fig. 4 a.b The remote village of Barubeda, Ranchi in the state of Jharkhand (Joanna Ptak, 2024)
Therefore the objectives of SUSTENANCE for Barubeda village are to deliver a sustainable clean local energy system for the remote off-grid village to improve the living standards of the villagers by providing reliable electricity access, e-rickshaw based green transportation and a reliable water supply. The Partners were thrilled to see first-hand evidence that the energy transition is already taking place in this remote location (Fig. 5)
Fig. 5 PV installation at Barubeda Village (Rakesh Sinha, 2024).
Last but not least, a big ‘thank you’ is given to prof. Zakir Rather from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and his wonderful team from the Grid Integration Lab for an outstanding organization of this 3-day long visit of SUSTENANCE partners in India.