Water treatment issue in Brazil is a multifaceted problem, however high operational costs, poor sensing & filtration technology alongside excessive water losses exacerbate the current situation and limit resources spent on other value adding projects. Aquárius Solar aims to integrate latest technological innovations with an Internet of Things (IOT) solution and solar technology to deliver clean, affordable and high quality water services to the urban population in Brazil. Integrating a smart system for sensing technology & filtration systems offers unprecedented real-time oversight on the quality of water and the technologies proposed drastically reduce cost for the water utilities providers. As part of connecting context-specific sensing technology to an IoT and ICT backend, our consortium will build a state-of-the-art real-time bio-sensor that does not exist in the market and is an output of our project. Furthermore, distributed power systems allows proliferation to areas with unreliable grid connectivity. Aquárius Solar has the potential to be a holistic, disruptive, modular tehcnology, increasing efficiency and reducing costs whilst providing many social benefits.

Swanbarton will lead a project with Gham Power, Practical Action Consulting, HiT Power Limited and Scene Connect to improve access to clean, reliable energy in Nepal. Improving electricity supply reliability and increasing renewable generation penetration will both reduce pollution and support economic growth. Gham Power will install an integrated solar PV and dual chemistry battery power supply system on a site in the Kathmandu valley to trial innovative new power control and monitoring systems. Swanbarton, leaders in energy storage and microgrids, will provide innovative battery control technology. HiT Power Limited will provide an advanced switch and a seamless grid-forming power conversion system. Scene Connect will provide an advanced distribution network monitoring solution. Practical Action Consulting will assess the solar PV and energy storage market, carry out a gender audit and write an action plan to promote training and development to meet targets for gender and social inclusion, and study the impact of the growth of the clean energy sector on recruitment and employment in the workforce.

The coast of Ghana stretches 350 miles, binds 4 administrative regions, and is home to more than a quarter of the country's population. Due to increasing salinity of the water and soil, indigenous coastal communities are suffering from a scarcity of safe water for drinking and irrigation, leading to poor agricultural productivity. Soil erosion and flooding are also growing problems along Ghana's coast, with millions of dollars invested in flood protection for major coastal cities. The "Saline Aquaculture Network in Ghana" project - SANGHA - will establish a network of saltmarsh and aquaculture sites to grow halophytic crops from local seawater and solar-powered irrigation. Degraded or redundant coastal lands will be adapted to grow the crops, and existing aquaculture farms will be enhanced with floating beds of samphire halophytes and mangrove reforestation, providing an additional revenue stream for the farmers as well as water cleaning, flood-mitigation, carbon capture, and pollution services. Scene Connect (SC) is Project Lead with Seawater Solutions (SS) as Technical Lead. SC is an expert in local energy systems and business model development for bottom-of-the-pyramid customers in the Global South. SS launched the first seawater farm in the United Kingdom and will launch Vietnam's first experimental aquaculture farm in early 2020. Various saltwater systems have been developed by SS, including renewable-powered irrigation systems, IoT sensors, and processes to mimic natural ecosystems. This innovation and approach will bring the following benefits to Ghana: • High carbon capture • Increased agricultural yields and improved soil/water/air quality • Promoting organic and regenerative farming practices • Promoting ecosystem restoration • Defence of coastlines from flooding and erosion • Producing high-value 'superfoods' (e.g., Samphire) • Improving incomes and livelihoods of indigenous coastal farmers, especially women, of coastal communities • Investigating novel markets across the agricultural supply chain. Local partner, Maltiti Foundation (MF) facilitates the promotion of quality livelihood for women living in deprived communities in Ghana. MF is the engagement and social research lead, conducting wide ranging analysis of local communities, project impacts and helping to integrate women, young people and marginalised groups into the SANGHANA project, including through awareness raising, training and employment.

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The Taka-cycle project will directly address the challenge of improving the lives of people living in urban slums in Uganda. Pollution in urban slums and ghettos across Africa is widespread due to poor waste disposal and recycling infrastructure, exacerbated by rapid population growth and increased urbanisation, which has led to other socio-economic issues such as poor living conditions and unemployment. To compensate for the lack of formal economic opportunities, informal inner city residents often turn to the informal economy; in Uganda, as in other countries worldwide, trash collection, particularly bottle collection, is a very familiar informal economy labour role.Our project will transform the economic potential of underserved communities by implementing a circular economy model that deploys disruptive manufacturing technology that can convert waste into productive products. We will leverage existing and new technologies to design a technical solution whereby locally sourced plastics can be recycled locally using a mobile manufacturing facility that will be able to convert plastics into useful products such as solar roof tiles which can then either be sold in domestic markets or international ones. We will devise a commercial model that leverages existing local supply chains, both in terms of materials and labour; for example, informal trash collectors can be brought into the formal economy by acting as suppliers of material. Locals can become operators of the mobile manufacturing machines, whilst others can be responsible for the sale of products. The aim of the project is thus to improve the economic and environmental conditions of informal settlements, which can lead to better working conditions and capacity building within local communities. There will also be a gender and social inclusion emphasis to ensure all marginalised groups are considered. Within the project there will be four stages. The first is context research where the research methodology will be defined, market research and data collection will be undertaken. The second is Stakeholder Engagement where local stakeholders will have the opportunity to input into the technical and commercial design process and site assessments will be carried out. The third stage is Design and Specifications where the technical solution and commercial model will be formulated and iteratively improved upon based on stakeholder feedback. The final stage is to devise the commercial and scalability model that can see the technical solution become actionable and used.

Incumbent methods of managing supply and demand of electricity in India are being disrupted by increased demand driven by economic and population growth, growth in connected intermittent generation driven by the low carbon transition and by the electrification of transport driven in part by urban air pollution concerns. It is widely acknowledged that new approaches are required to assist grid management if policy objectives associated with security of supply, decarbonisation and air quality are to be met. A key driver of demand growth in the residential sector is the uptake of residential air conditioning (AC) systems which has reached 40% in many urban centres. This technology also represents an untapped demand response opportunity; for instance providing c8GW of flexible operating reserve in the US with provision highly cost competitive compared to alternative methods of flexibility provision. The DAC project develops a novel control system capable of accessing flexibility from existing residential AC systems in India. The system modifies operation of AC systems based on input from a multi-objective, cloud-based control platform using grid property triggers (e.g. voltage, frequency) and time based signals. The controller measures internal temperature in the dwelling to ensure that the accessed AC system flexibility is constrained by found, local thermal comfort requirements. An evidence base for the system approach will be provided by a field trial involving deployment of DAC systems in a 30 dwelling, six month field trial located in Tamil Nadu in Southern India. The design and commercialisation of the system will be guided by three stakeholder workshops. Output from the first will be used to define control objectives relevant to Indian grid management at both distribution and network level. Output from the second will explore the value that can be created from provision of these services, allowing subsequent development of novel business models that socialise derived value between all stakeholders. These business models will be tempered using output from the third workshop that investigates mitigation approaches for any distributional effects of the technology. The DAC project will be delivered and managed by an established team who have been collaborating on demand and grid management projects in India for the last three years. They contain experts in social inclusion , thermal comfort, product design, data science, control theory and business development in the sustainability sector and contain a wide network of influencers in Indian energy policy at both a National and State level.

Biogas digesters transform waste organic matter into methane gas, providing a source of clean renewable energy, a safe alternative to the pollution caused by burning wood. However construction of biogas digesters is only a first step to providing clean energy. Maintenance is crucial; many digesters constructed are out of action at any one time and functioning digesters are not always operated to their full potential. When digesters break or operate below expectations, it is often difficult for households to identify and contact a technician with the specialist skills to repair the system. This leads to biogas digesters remaining defective or completely broken, forcing users to supplement their energy supply by, or revert to, burning wood again. Failure leads to unavoidable health, financial and environmental costs and damages the reputation of biogas technology. The Smart Biogas Network, the technological solution being explored in this project, will connect owners of defective or broken biogas plants across Tanzania with those who can fix them, hence improving the security of clean, renewable energy supply with potential wider applicability across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Establishing Mutually Beneficial Local Energy Markets 2 (EMBLEM 2) will test the feasibility of peer-to-peer energy trading for the Global South in two novel ways. The first P2P market is an evolving standalone DC nanogrid for rural off-grid areas that can grow as and when end users choose to invest in new generation, storage and demand appliances. The second P2P market is AC on-grid urban and peri-urban locations where there are significant network constraints and the cost of adding renewable energy is unaffordable. EMBLEM integrates cutting-edge UK innovations from Scene Connect, Swanbarton and Connected Energy Technologies and is supported by international partners Dassy Enterprise and GhamPower in Rwanda and Nepal, respectively. This product will disrupt current energy markets by increasing the viability of small-scale renewable energy installations, and the ability of AC and DC electrical grids to incorporate them. The Global South will benefit most from the resultant technology.

REFRUIT (Resource Efficient Farming by Renewable Ugandan Irrigation Technology) addresses the barriers to irrigation uptake in Uganda and aims to deliver a technical solution and commercial strategy to improve productivity and livelihoods for the ~34M agrigulturally dependent population in Uganda. The project combines the easy-to-use and highly localised precision irrigation of Farm-Hand with the robust and low-cost solar pumps of Futurepump for field trials in the Gulu region of Uganda co-ordinated by Gulu Agricultural Development Company. Uganda utilises less than 0.5% of its irrigation potential. Simple irrigation has the potential to increase yields up to 5 times and precision irrigation further increases farm productivity by increasing yields and decreasing inputs. REFRUIT's objective is to adapt smart precision solar irrigation for the Ugandan context through a participatory process involving gathering baseline data and stakeholder workshops with farmers and aggregators; to demonstrate its performance through field trials; and to build a sustainable commercial case for its roll-out that utilises existing local structures. REFRUIT aim is to deliver a commercially viable and potentially disruptive renewable irrigation solution.

Most of the remarkable growth in renewable energy production has occurred among variable technologies (wind power and solar PV), raising concerns about the challenges of integrating large shares of variable generation into power systems. Establishing Mutually Beneficial Local Energy Markets (EMBLEM) aims to test the feasibility of a pioneering energy trading system for local energy economies, that aims to be a cost effective demand response solution to securing efficient energy supply. The concept is a win-win-win for producers, consumers (and prosumers) of energy, and also national grid and distribution systems, aiming to reduce network stress and power outages. EMBLEM integrates cutting-edge UK innovations - Scene Connect's Cloud Solar, off-grid energy metering and control hardware, and Swanbarton's Smart Trading platform - to deliver a product that goes beyond the current state-of-the-art. This product promises to disrupt current energy markets by increasing the viability of small renewable energy installations, and the electrical grid's ability to incorporate them. The key usage of the resultant technology will be in the developing world where grid systems are rapidly expanding and are under significant stress.

India has ambitious investment plans for developing solar energy to twenty times that which is currently installed in the next five years. The SCORRES project will develop replicable, commercially & technically viable smart energy systems for rural & agricultural communities that are cognisant of the requirments of key stakeholder groups (e.g. communities, farmers, regulators, technology providers and investors). These systems will include distributed renewable energy sources, such as solar-PV, electrical storage, system control software and demand managment control technology. Systems will be capable of being grid connected and of working in stand-alone mode to widen acces to electricity, addressing poverty and improving lives and health. System control technology will be developed and tailored for the Indian market by UK partners and will utilise innovative, patented forecasting technology. Feasibility of the smart energy systems will be assessed in two pilot trials, namely a rural village and a vegetable farm which will be deployed & managed by the Indian partners.

This project is a collaboration between Chilean distributed solar energy developer, Ciudad Luz, and British distributed energy ICT specialists, Scene. Together they aim to adapt existing technology, created by Scene, to develop products for the Chilean market that would allow a pay as you go solar service market offering to form.This would allow poorer, remote and more sceptical potential users of solar energy are able to access solar services, without having to pay for the equipment outright. For this to be possible, sophisticated monitoring, control and communications technology will be used to reduce risk for project financiers, and to ensure that the user only pays for what they use. An additional aspect of the project is to incorporate mobile payment functionality, so that users are able to pre-pay for their energy use in a quick and administratively efficient manner.