Decentralised Solar Hydrogen for rural India (DeSHI)

To tackle the challenges of air pollution (caused by about 60% share of fossil fuels in power generation, vehicles, rudimentary agricultural practices and industry), quality of power, energy poverty and rural-urban development disparity, India will have to consider, more urgently than ever, solar energy generated cleaner fuels and energy storage media such as hydrogen.

To address the lack of robust transmission and distribution network in rural locations (>65% of India’s population lives in villages), it is imperative that village-scale decentralized power generation systems assisted by dedicated mini- or micro-grids are deployed. In this context, the DeSHI project, led by Brunel University London in collaboration with Arktik Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pvt Ltd (India) and Institute of Rural Management Anand (India), is investigating the technoeconomic feasibility and potential societal impact of advanced solar photocatalytic and electrolytic hydrogen generators in rural India in the run up to 2070 (India’s committed deadline to become a zero-carbon economy) and in the post-carbon India (after 2070). Informed deployment scenarios, performance parameters and industry perspective data are being employed to understand and evaluate the impact and disseminate project outputs. The potential generative impacts of solar hydrogen in supporting rural commercial, industrial and horticultural activities are being particularly evaluated.

The following objectives have been identified:

1. Development of deployment scenarios for DeSHI solar hydrogen technology in rural locations
2. Collection of interfering parameters including competing technologies, energy demand profile, ambient and solar conditions
3. Understanding and evaluating the impact of the technology and disseminate the outcomes and develop capacity

The project is funded by UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

Project Team

• Brunel University London, UK (Overall Project Lead: Dr Harjit Singh, Co-Investigator: Prof Savvas Tassou)
• IRMA | Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat, India, (Co-Investigator: Dr Rakesh Arrawatia)
• Arktik Renewables & Energy Efficiency Private Limited, India (Co-Investigator: Dr Anshul Paneri)

Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project

Dr Harjit Singh - Dr Singh received his BEng, and MEng (IIT Roorkee, India) with specialisation in Mechanical and Thermal Engineering disciplines and PhD (University of Ulster, UK) in experimental evaluation of natural convective heat transfer in CPC solar collector cavities. He was a Senior Lecturer in Renewable Energy at the Kingston University London (2009-2011) prior to accepting the current position. He has six years of research experience on various EU, EPSRC, the Carbon Trust and Defra funded projects. Dr Singh was previously a Lecturer of Mechanical Engineering at National Institute of Technology Hamirpur, India. His research focuses on various aspects of solar energy systems, energy use in built environment. Topics currently being researched into include design and development of novel concentrating solar collectors, vacuum insulation panels and building retrofit for improved energy efficiency.

Project last modified 29/01/2024