Chloe Tingle and Adam Smith, students at the University of Bristol, have travelled to the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu to look at ways in which the residents of a Mumbai slum and two remote villages can improve their lives by generating their own power.

India has a population of 350 million people, but a quarter of the country still has no electricity. Vast areas of Tamil Nadu suffer from intermittent electricity or no energy supply at all, making even the most basic daily tasks extremely difficult.

Chloe and Adam arrived in Mumbai on Saturday 27 July to undertake a fact finding mission as part of a project led by Bristol-based charity The Converging World (TCW), which has installed wind farms in the area, investing the profits into helping people who live in energy poverty.

The pair will run workshops in the Mumbai slum, where a solar project is underway at a local community centre, educating local people about the importance of renewable energies. They will then travel to the villages of Kalilaspura and Muthumakamura, which are close to wind turbines built by TCW, where they will assess the energy needs and lifestyles of the local people and will also meet local suppliers of biomass and biogas generators.

Both students are part of the Bristol branch of Engineers Without Borders (EWB), a student-run organisation working to remove barriers to development through engineering.

Chloe, who is in the final year of a Master’s degree in Engineering Design, is a volunteer project manager for TCW’s Access to Affordable Sustainable Energy programme. She says:  “Our trip is a fact-finding mission to gain an appreciation of local lifestyles. Meeting with communities face to face is the best way to understand their needs and learn about how their quality of life could be improved.”

Adam, who has just completed a Masters in Physics, adds: “At The Converging World we are focussed on sustainability, so it’s important that we don’t go straight in and install energy systems that no-one understands how to use or maintain, that will be forgotten after a couple of years.”

When the pair return to the UK at the end of August they will continue to work on the project, using their research to compile recommendations regarding the best type of technology to use and which suppliers in India could help.

Chloe and Adam’s part time internships at TCW are sponsored by the University of Bristol and their trip to India has been self-funded through grants and fundraising events.

Further information can be found at www.sponsorcraft.com/p/theconvergingworld/.

source: http://www.guide2bristol.com / Guide 2 Bristol / Home> Bristol News/Features / July 31st, 2013