Off-Grid: Decentralized Water-Energy-Food Nexus

Deepak Mohapatra works as the Senior Officer - Business & Market Development at the Alliance for Rural Electrification (ARE), a leading global business association representing the decentralised renewable energy (DRE) sector for provision of energy access in developing and emerging countries. He works closely together with more than 200 ARE Members, as well as international and local partners to improve market conditions, facilitate capacity building, and establish favourable environment enabling business for private sector companies in DRE space across the globe. Previously Deepak worked at a German NGO called 'Lernen - Helfen - Leben e.V. as a Project Coordinator. He holds MSc. in Renewable Energy Management from Technical University of Cologne (TH Köln), Germany and B.Tech. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT), India.

Stefan Trittler has been active in the off-grid market for 15 years, during which he has held a number of roles including engineering, project management, sales and R&D. Prior to his current position as Head of Innovation / Project Principal at Asantys Systems GmbH, he was employed as Project Principal and Engineering Manager at PowerGen Renewable Energies Ltd, active as mini-grid developer and operator in East and West Africa. Previously, Stefan Trittler was Technical Expert Hybrid Systems at juwi AG, responsible for system design, engineering and project management of various international off-grid systems. Before that, he gained experience in technical sales of off-grid systems at Energiebau Solarstromsysteme GmbH and HAWI Energietechnik AG. In addition to his off-grid experience, he has travelled to numerous countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and has a special focus on rural electrification in these regions.

Jessica Berneiser has been working as a researcher in the team "User Behavior and Field Tests" at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE since 2018. In her research, she examines barriers and drivers of the energy transition, the acceptance of renewable energies and environmental policy measures as well as their social and socio-economic impact. One of her research foci is the social acceptance of agrivoltaics in sub-Saharan Africa. The role of efficacy beliefs in the context of rural electrification is also part of her PhD at the University of Groningen. Furthermore, she has been working as a scientific advisor for the German Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since 2022.

Bärbel Höhn is a German politician for Alliance '90/The Greens. Ms. Höhn became State Minister for Environment and Agriculture in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1995 to 2005. In 2005 she was elected to the Bundestag in the 2005 national elections. She first served as chairwoman of the Committee on Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection from 2005 to 2006. Between 2006 and 2013 she was vice chairwoman of the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag, and as such responsible for the issues of energy, climate, environment, transport, agriculture, nature conservation and construction. From 2014 to 2017 Bärbel Höhn served as chairwoman of the Committee on the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. Having participated in various UN Climate Change conferences, she was a regular speaker at international climate and energy conventions. From November 2017 to October 2023, Bärbel Höhn was acting as unpaid Special Representative for Energy in Africa for the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and since November 2023 she is BMZ Special Representative for Decentralised Energy Supply with focus on the entire global South. In this regard she promotes the importance of Decentralised Energy with her many years of political experience and expertise in renewable energy.

Philipp is an international expert in island energy supply and rural electrification. He conducted a PhD in engineering about 'Barriers to implementing renewable energies on Caribbean islands' at the TU Berlin. In 2011, he joined the Reiner Lemoine Institut and he started to develop the Off-Grid Systems Research Unit, which he is currently heading. Within the Unit, he develops and manages projects and strategic processes. In 2019 Philipp was appointed Visiting Scholar in the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) of the University of California, Berkeley as part of the C-BEAR+ project and he is a selected member of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Since 2020 he is also leading the RLS-Graduate School on Energy System Transition with currently 6 PhD students.

Julian Fleischmann is a doctoral student and researcher at University of Freiburg, TH Cologne, and Reiner Lemoine Institute Berlin. He focuses on open software for facilitating the planning of integrated water-energy-food-environment infrastructure solutions. So far, the research and software approaches have been applied for case studies in Lebanon, Germany, Costa Rica, Colombia, Morocco, South Africa, and Namibia.