REACH · Renewable Energy and Connectivity Hub

While in the developed regions availability of electricity power has paved the way of sustainable development, it is still not available to ca. 18% of the world population, living in rural areas in developing countries and refugee camps worldwide. No access to power indicates exhausting effort for covering basic needs, which impedes sustainable social and economic development. Nearly 700 million people worldwide have mobile phone connections but no access to the electricity. In India, people belong to off-grid communities need to travel approximately 15 km to get their mobile phone charged. We have developed a unique solar power based Hub system and remote payment control mechanism by which electronic devices can be charged under the control of a central server to ensure accountability and transparency. This will enable EU companies to enter in €8 to 10 billion untouched market by delivering essential internet-based services (e.g., e-health, e-education, e-governance etc). BuffaloGrid supplies Hubs free of cost to local agents. This will stimulate local enterprise, encourage entrepreneurship and boost economic development. During SMEi Phase – 1 feasibility study, we have identified several technical improvements that are mainly focused on further development of the Hub, PCB and server designs. For commercial feasibility of the project, we have successfully performed market research, environmental impact assessment, partnership establishment, risk analysis and competitor analysis. During this project, we aim to reach from TRL7 to TRL9 and will make the product ready for mass scale deployment. We will focus on technical design improvement of the Hub for cost reduction (60%) and will finalise optimised system for mass scale production. We will also validate Hub functionality and server operations and will trial online services of EU SMEs in the field. Our commercialization plan is to deploy minimum 50,000 hubs across India, Sub-Sahara Africa and Refugee camps by 2021.