IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2019 - 12

Entrepreneur Viewpoint

by Deepak Divan

The IEEE Empower a Billion Lives
Competition: Regional Round Results

M

any of you have read about
the IEEE Empower a Billion
Lives (EBL) global competition to crowdsource the development
of scalable solutions to energy access,
which can rapidly improve the lifestyle
and livelihood of the 1.1 billion people
who live off grid and the 3 billion people who live with severe energy poverty. Current approaches to resolving
this issue are to build or extend the
grid to these communities at a cost
point that is simply not viable. Even if
we were to miraculously succeed in
our mission and be able to lift their living standards to the Organisation for
Economic Co-Operation and Development's levels using today's available
technology, this would result in 3.7
Gtons/year more in carbon emissions:
an environmental catastrophe!
The EBL competition was launched
in 2018 as a biennial global event to
help teams around the world develop energy access solutions that could
prov ide economica lly v iable and
scalable solutions for communities
with average incomes of lower than
US$2 per day. It was felt that teams
regionally would know their community needs and be able to offer viable
solutions to improve their productivity and livelihood. Teams would be
evaluated in terms of technology, social impact, and business factors, with
an emphasis on the ability to scale their

solutions rapidly and sustainably. The
competition was conceptualized and
organized by the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) and its volunteers
and staff, with strong support from several organizations, including the Center
for Distributed Energy at the Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta.

Table 1. The EBL 2019 global finalists.
Team Name

Country

Award

Winnie the Power

Canada

Student-The Americas

Xpower

United States

Grand-The Americas

Perryman

United States

2B-The Americas

Reeddi

Canada

1B-The Americas

Baobab+

France

1A-Europe

Smart Grids Lab

Scotland

Student-Europe

Solaris Off-Grid

Spain

1B-Europe

Solar Worx

Germany

2B-Europe

FDU-Light Up

China

2A-Pacific Asia

Green Spark

China

2B-Pacific Asia

Solageo

China

1A-Pacific Asia

Dream Grid

China

Student-Pacific Asia

Apollo

Taiwan

1B-Pacific Asia

Okra

France

Grand-Pacific Asia

Power@NUS

Singapore

Student-South Asia

Bombay Bijlee

India

1B-South Asia

Cygni Energy

India

2A-South Asia

SoULS Initiative

India

Grand-South Asia

Agro Hub

Nepal

2B-South Asia

Café Lumiere

Madagascar

2B-Africa

Havenhill Synergy

Nigeria

2A-Africa

Nanoe'

Madagascar

Grand-Africa

Simuusolar

Tanzania

1A-Africa

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPEL.2019.2924073
Date of publication: 6 September 2019

12

IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

For a new initiative operating on a
skeleton budget, the response to EBL
has been nothing short of amazing!
The competition launched in May 2018
with an online round, which attracted
459 registered teams from more than
70 countries, including from more than
40 African countries! An international

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