MES 2018 Travelling Conference
International Conference: MicroPerspectives for Decentralized Energy,
Regional Opportunities in South East Asia,
How bottom up energy transition and energy access metrics can contribute to human-centered product design and business development?

February 20-25, 2018
Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines
Consists of 1-day Workshops in each country.

Background:

The MES 2018 Travelling Conference is funded by BMBF and initiated by the Microenergy Systems (MES) Research Group at TU Berlin. The MES Research Group was launched in 2003 by a group of researchers and practitioners from TU Berlin, GIZ and MicroEnergy International. Since then, many research and educational activities were carried out, including a postgraduate school. The MES Research Group also organizes yearly MES conferences since 2009. Previous conferences took place in Germany, US, India and Colombia.

During the MES 2018 Travelling Conference experts and researchers of German companies and institutions are going to present and discuss their current research and development topics and interest in bottom up energy transition with potential academic and practice counterparts in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The conference will be an important milestone in the roadmap towards establishing the exchange of knowledge and strengthening existing and/or potential scientific collaboration between Germany and the South-East Asia region in the field of climate change, bottom up global energy transition, energy access and energy transition metrics, human-centered product design and social business development. Furthermore, the Conference would like to replicate and implement the “Mikroklima” concept initiated by the TU Berlin and aims at practically implementing research projects around climate change issues on the micro-level and bringing it into practice. Currently, “Mikroklima” has been implemented in Central Asia and West Africa.

The overall aim of the conference is to explore energy systems in the context of a bottom up global energy transition. The focus lies on the micro perspective and therefore takes into account particularly the needs and the contribution opportunities of households and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) towards a sustainable global energy transition.

The Conference consists of a series of workshops with interactive sessions and round table discussions, as well as field visits to local installations and end-users. As for the participants from the German institutions, TU Berlin will send 6 researchers and 1 researcher from Fraunhofer Center for International Management and Knowledge Economy.

Objectives of the conference:

• To provide a platform for the development of international cooperation and of a joint research agenda
• To bring together experience and results from research and implementation projects in a regional network and make it accessible to global, regional and local actors
• To enable a fast transfer of research results into entrepreneurial and social impact and to support the development of new business models and make appropriate tools available
• To establish long-term partnerships between scientific actors in Germany and South East Asia, to implement among other the “Mikroklima” concept locally and regionally and share their insights and results with the global “Mikroklima” network.
• To promote a tool such as Multi-Tier Framework to support bottom up energy transition

1st Workshop – Singapore

The first workshop of the Travelling Conference is jointly organised with the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

The SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC) is a world premier scholarly hub for technologically-intensive design science, research and practice. It is a multi-million dollar centre based both in Singapore at SUTD, and in Cambridge, MA, USA at MIT, with academic and industrial partners from around the world. IDC faculty, researchers and students work together to design devices, products, systems, services and the built environment that address strategic needs of Singapore, the greater Asian region, the US, and the global community. At the same time, the IDC studies and advances the design process and design science, seeking to develop new tools and methods for design practice and education.

The SEER4ALL Symposium at the TU Berlin
SEER4ALL – Sustainable Energy Education & Research for All

The SEER4ALL Symposium at the TU Berlin In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly agreed on 17 new global goals for the sustainable development of our world: Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. Among the 17 objectives is Goal 7: to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. One of the important tasks of this objective is to strengthen international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technology.

The Sustainable Energy Research & Education for All (SEER4ALL) initiative at the Technical University of Berlin is intended to make a comprehensive contribution to this goal, to inspire and motivate other research institutions around the world to join forces in order to improve a global transformation process through technology and know-how transfer. On 27 January, SEER4ALL will present and discuss how these goals can be achieved in a symposium at the TU Berlin.

This event is jointly organised by the science shop kubus at the central institution for further education and cooperation (ZEWK) and the Association of Microenergy Systems (MES). The SEER4All Symposium is intended to present the diversity of research and programmes in university teaching, which are already offered at the TU Berlin in the field of energy and development. The symposium is aimed at various public and private actors of local and global importance and aims to jointly develop and collect ideas for new projects in this area.

The symposium provides a platform for academics, private and public actors, local entrepreneurs and students. It informs about current research, exchanges experiences and reflects on new innovative projects.

Latin America, first region to acheive universal energy access?

MES Conference 2016: Decentralized energy solutions (DES), the decisive factor
November 23-25, 2016
Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana,
Medellín, Colombia

Objective:

To provide participants with a platform where academics, private and public stakeholders, local entrepreneurs and international players can exchange lessons learned and successful experiences, as well as streamlining efforts towards a sustainable and scalable dissemination of decentralized energy supply in Colombia and Latin America.

Access to reliable, affordable and clean energy sources is the main prerequisite for economic growth and climate protection. In Colombia, academic institutions have started to partner with private companies to pilot and foster innovative projects adapted to the local context, which prove economic, social and ecological sustainability. However, targeted and commercially scalable clean energy projects need to be further developed in order to meet households’ and enterprises’ energy needs, as well as national energy policy objectives.

The experience that the academic institutions and practitioners have gained through the implementation of RE/EE based projects in Colombia can provide the private and public sector with significant learning cases and innovative models to be replicated and scaled-up in Latin America.

Value proposition:

• Important lessons learned and know-how sharing
• Findings from in-depth interdisciplinary scientific research
• Group and personalized consulting advice from experts
• Visibility to local initiatives and institutions
• Connection among practitioners in the field of energy access and access to finance
• Collaboration across different actors to develop result-oriented strategies and projects
• Personalized and interactive session, adjusted to participants’ needs and expectations
• Field exposure.

Micro Perspectives for Decentralized Energy Supply
April 23-25, 2015
Bangalore, India

The 2015 International Scientific Conference on Micro Perspectives for Decentralized Energy Supply (MES 2015 Conference) took place from April 23^rd through April 25^th2015 in Bangalore, India. 121 participants and a conference team of 10 professors of BMS contributed to a successful and inspiring event. Seven of the participants could be provided a travel scholarship (funded by ADA, Smart Villages Initiative and Hans-Böckler-Stiftung).

The MES 2015 Conference took place around the BMS Campus and the agenda of the event consisted of

• 36 paper presentations in 12 sessions,
• 4 business plans and poster presentation,
• Virtual sessions in order to make the conference more accessible,
• Business plan competition in cooperation with ADB-Energy for All (April 21^st – 22^nd ),

Snapshot of the conference highlights:

• Closing Keynote by Harish Hande (SELCO): Harish gave some powerful and critical input at the end of the conference on the view of the BoP as a market of a size of 5trillion, but importantly with a non-expendable income. He inspired the audience to go beyond and away from looking at the 1.5b poor without electricity as a great market but to leave expectations behind and create hands-on business models. The keynote speech is uploaded in full length on energypedia +link, please find it here.

• Keynotes, Sessions: Introduction remarks by Leena Srivastava, her points being taken up by many during the break-out sessions – the question on why decentralized energy supply has such a primary focus on rural areas while being the most difficult and vulnerable areas to create a market in. She leaves the audience with the question on whether it would make more sense to conduct the de-risking in urban areas and then take that knowledge and experience into rural areas, and to leverage the potential for leapfrogging.

The complete conference proceedings can be found here.
For the conference summary please click here.

Innovating Energy Access for Remote Areas: Discovering untapped resources
April 10-12, 2014,
Berkeley, USA

In 2014 the Microenergy Systems Research Group organized the first international symposium on Innovating Energy Access for Remote Areas together with the Berkeley Rural Energy Research Group (BREG) in Berkeley, USA. Numerous papers from researchers from around the world dealt with innovations in energy access in structurally weak regions. This conference aimed on giving all these researchers a plattform for scientific exchange and to motivate and inspire further research efforts.

For the conference summary and outcome please click here.

Micro Perspectives for Decentralized Energy Supply
February 27 – March 1, 2013,
Berlin, Germany

About 1.7 Billion people worldwide are without access to electricity. To extend the access to energy services areas with low incomes and weak infrastructure in the North and in the South renewable energies play a crucial role. However, innovative solutions – like microenergy systems – need to be adapted to the special conditions in these areas.

Field researches show, that energy solutions are mostly technology driven and not linked to the needs, the terms of livelihood and capability of people. Hence the panel discussion will elaborate which pressing tangible questions need to be answered and how science can contribute to increase the implementation rate of microenergy systems.

Like in the previous years, scientists and practitioners discussed technical, economical, social and ecological aspects of microenergy systems.

Micro Perspectives for Decentralized Energy Supply
April 7-8, 2011,
Berlin, Germany

About 1.7 Billion people worldwide are without access to electricity. To extend the access to energy services areas with low incomes and weak infrastructure in the North and in the South renewable energies play a crucial role. However, innovative solutions – like microenergy systems – need to be adapted to the special conditions in these areas.

Field researches show, that energy solutions are mostly technology driven and not linked to the needs, the terms of livelihood and capability of people. Hence the panel discussion will elaborate which pressing tangible questions need to be answered and how science can contribute to increase the implementation rate of microenergy systems.

Representatives of the international scientific community, the development cooperation and the private sector will also discuss how they can improve cooperation in order to deliver energy services to the poor.