A group of students along with Andreas Günther and Hans Holtorf travelled to Augsburg to attend the OFF-GRID Expo + Conference (OEC) which was conducted on the 1st - 3rd of December 2021. OEC is an event that takes place at Messe Augsburg every year in the first week of December, it includes a Tech day, where the companies present themselves and their product, an exhibition and a conference, where there are events like panel discussions, business to business matchmaking, speed dating, and even a student competition called ‘Education Mile’ where students from different universities present their research projects. This year the OEC was conducted in hybrid mode i.e. participants were in presence as well as in online mode.
Conference:
Every year OEC tries to integrate something new with respect to the off-grid concept and this year they choose ‘OFF-Grid Water’ to be the main topic of the conference. There were delegates from Zanzibar who presented their future plant to suffice their water supply electricity needs from renewable energy sources, an Off-Grid Water Alliance was formed which aims to advance the supply of potable water in East Africa. There were many panel discussions targeting topics on capacity building in renewable energy solutions, off-grid solutions for mining and in the agriculture sector.
Education Mile:
Five students from PPRE presented their research at the OEC in the Education mile event, it was a 10 min presentation with 5 min of questions at the end. Mitali Murkar (PPRE 2020-22) had chaired the event and was awarded with a certificate of acknowledgment for her efforts which made the event a success. Aliqyaan Sakarwala (PPRE 19-21) secured the 2nd place at the competition where he presented his master thesis on energy optimization of a prosumer household with bi-directional electric vehicles.
The OEC was a platform for students to connect with professionals in the industry, researchers from different research organizations and students from different universities. It helped the students to find opportunities for their master thesis and built their career path. Keeping in mind of the current COVID situation, all rules and regulations were followed as per the University of Oldenburg and Messe Augsburg. The students acknowledge the help from the PPRE team for managing and guiding them to make the event a memorable one. Furthermore, the participants owe a thank you to DAAD and ‘Studienqualitätsmittel’ at University of Oldenburg for financially supporting their journey to Augsburg and the participation in OEC.
Contributors:
Mitali Murkar, Surangi Wanninayaka, Mohammad Arhum, Hans Holtorf, Aliqyaan Sakarwala