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Projects: Projects for Investigator
Reference Number EP/R030235/1
Title Resilient Electricity Networks for a productive Grid Architecture (RENGA)
Status Completed
Energy Categories Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electric power conversion) 15%;
Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution) 70%;
Other Power and Storage Technologies(Energy storage) 15%;
Research Types Basic and strategic applied research 100%
Science and Technology Fields ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) 100%
UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation Not Cross-cutting 100%
Principal Investigator Dr A Junyent-Ferre
No email address given
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Imperial College London
Award Type Standard
Funding Source EPSRC
Start Date 01 May 2018
End Date 30 April 2022
Duration 48 months
Total Grant Value £984,148
Industrial Sectors Energy
Region London
Programme Global Challenges Research Fund - EPSRC
 
Investigators Principal Investigator Dr A Junyent-Ferre , Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London (99.995%)
  Other Investigator Professor J Nelson , Department of Physics (the Blackett Laboratory), Imperial College London (0.001%)
Dr I Staffell , Business School, Imperial College London (0.001%)
Professor G (Goran ) Strbac , Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London (0.001%)
Professor T Green , Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London (0.001%)
Professor E Ntagwirumugara , UNLISTED, University of Rwanda (0.001%)
  Industrial Collaborator Project Contact , BBOXX Ltd (0.000%)
Project Contact , Meshpower Ltd, Rwanda (0.000%)
Web Site
Objectives
Abstract Electricity access is widely acknowledged as one of the key enablers of human development. Bringing electricity to low income areas in the developing world involves great technical, geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges. In recent years, autonomous electricity supply systems (AESS) have found a role in replacing kerosene lamps and candles as sources for basic lighting. However, their power rating was too low to power even small machinery, which made them have very little impact on the way people produce goods. According to the well-established power systems planning paradigm, the way to enable electricity access suitable for more productive applications is to build new transmission corridors to ship power from large power plants to isolated areas where it will be distributed using regional distribution networks. While this approach proved successful in the mid twentieth century, it often incurs prohibitive costs that make such projects infeasible in developing countries. One of the main issues of the old paradigm is that it misses the opportunity to use distributed energy resources (ie small scale generation, energy storage, etc) available today to drive the costs down and achieve better energy supply. The aim of this project is to bring some light over this matter by investigating a new approach where the electrical network would start from the local interconnection of small scale AESS. This ambitious goal will require the investigation of a suitable technological solution to link multiple AESS together, the development of new tools that are suitable to optimise the operation and planning of a network of interconnected AESS with models of demand and generation tailored for rural electrification applications. The work will use Rwanda as the main study case with the cooperation of the University of Rwanda, that will provide support for the derivation of models and will study and characterise the most interesting productive uses of electricity to meet the specific needs in rural Rwanda. The work will also be carried in collaboration with BBOXX and Meshpower, two British companies started by alumni of Imperial College London that commercialise AESS in several countries around the world including Rwanda
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Added to Database 06/02/19