Context & objective of the project:

Over 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) still lack access to electricity. Thanks to rapid reductions in costs, standalone solar-PV microgrids have become a promising low-carbon solution for rural electrification. However, their economic viability remains limited as they rely on costly battery storage to match solar power generation with demand. Expanding PV microgrids to supply electricity for wider community services (e.g., water, health, transport) and productive uses (e.g., milling and agriculture, small-scale artisanal activities) introduces loads that can be better aligned with solar generation or which can utilise demand-side response strategies (load shifting).

PhD short description:

This PhD aims to investigate how the selection and combination of community and productive electricity uses influences livelihoods and the affordability of access to sustainable energy. The successful candidate will develop computational models of electricity uses in rural microgrids, model a wide range of electricity-enabled services (e.g., water access, cold storage, agri-processing, electric-vehicle charging), capturing their temporal dynamics, flexibility potential, and socio-economic value. These models will be integrated into the open-source microgrid modelling framework, CLOVER, alongside appropriate socio-economic indicators quantifying impacts on livelihoods (e.g., income generation, access to essential services, health, communications). The work will involve model development, simulation and data analysis along with analysis of socio-economic metrics. A key challenge will be to design models that are both realistic and computationally efficient for large-scale simulations. The developed framework will then be applied to conduct geospatial analyses across SSA, using large-scale input datasets to identify how electricity-enabled services deliver the highest impact in different regional contexts.

Context & objective of the project:

Over 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) still lack access to electricity. Thanks to rapid reductions in costs, standalone solar-PV microgrids have become a promising low-carbon solution for rural electrification. However, their economic viability remains limited as they rely on costly battery storage to match solar power generation with demand. Expanding PV microgrids to supply electricity for wider community services (e.g., water, health, transport) and productive uses (e.g., milling and agriculture, small-scale artisanal activities) introduces loads that can be better aligned with solar generation or which can utilise demand-side response strategies (load shifting).

PhD short description:

This PhD aims to investigate how the selection and combination of community and productive electricity uses influences livelihoods and the affordability of access to sustainable energy. The successful candidate will develop computational models of electricity uses in rural microgrids, model a wide range of electricity-enabled services (e.g., water access, cold storage, agri-processing, electric-vehicle charging), capturing their temporal dynamics, flexibility potential, and socio-economic value. These models will be integrated into the open-source microgrid modelling framework, CLOVER, alongside appropriate socio-economic indicators quantifying impacts on livelihoods (e.g., income generation, access to essential services, health, communications). The work will involve model development, simulation and data analysis along with analysis of socio-economic metrics. A key challenge will be to design models that are both realistic and computationally efficient for large-scale simulations. The developed framework will then be applied to conduct geospatial analyses across SSA, using large-scale input datasets to identify how electricity-enabled services deliver the highest impact in different regional contexts.