In our second interview in the ‘TEA Breaks’ series, we chat with Professor Satish Patil, Professor at the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science. He discusses the importance of developing local solutions for local problems, and what he sees as his duty as a scientist to provide answers that make the world a better place.
‘TEA Breaks’ is a series where we chat to our experts on the TEA@SUNRISE project about Transforming Energy Access (TEA) and next-generation solar. Join us for 10-15 minutes with a cup of tea (or beverage of your choice) as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of renewable energy transitions.
Transcript:
Georgia Bevan (GB): Hello I’m Georgia and I run the marketing and communications for the TEA@SUNRISE project which is about finding ways of using next-generation solar to secure a just energy transition. Today, I’m talking with Satish Patil who is a Professor at the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science. He’s also a member of our leadership group at TEA@SUNRISE.
Q1: What is your area of expertise?
GB: Hello Satish, to get us started, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your area of expertise?
Satish Patil (SP): Hello, I’m Satish Patil I’m a Professor and Chair of a department in the Solid State and Structural Chemistry unit at the Indian Institute of Science. Indian Institute of Science is one of the premier institutes in India. By training I’m a polymer chemist, I currently work in the area of energy materials like organic solar cells, batteries, so essentially, to summarise my research area is in energy materials.
Q2: What attracted you to working in the area of energy materials?
GB: What attracted you to working in the area of energy materials?
SP: So as you know this climate change is one of the major challenges for human civilisation. So all of us are trying to develop sustainable solutions for addressing some of the key challenges in the area of energy generation as well as in the area of energy storage. So there are solutions which are currently available, those are for deploying in large scale, in tera watt scales, and there are challenges with the existing technology. However, what we are trying to do is to develop very cost effective technologies. So we are working on emerging research areas so that’s sort of our mandate because we are in research and development academic institutions, so our main focus is to address some of the key questions in these emerging areas of research. So in that context we work in organic solar cells, trying to understand what are the major limitations in organic solar cells, or taking from a laboratory to commercial scale.
Q3: What was your experience of working within the previous, interdisciplinary SUNRISE network?
GB: You were also previously a key member of the sunrise network, what was your experience of working within that interdisciplinary network, with lots of people from different backgrounds and disciplines, and were there any challenges to working in that environment?
MS-B: That was a fantastic experience, I think that benefitted me a lot on my personal research journey. Because initially it took some time, I think the main difficulties were initially it took some time to know each other, like build friendships with people and to know our strengths and weaknesses. So once we established collaborations it was extraordinary how it took off, you know many things. Because the expertise from Indian scientists and scientists from the UK they’re very complimentary to each other. That benefitted expediating our research programme overall. Also one of the major objectives of SUNRISE was to bring a large number of expertise in a different field under one roof. And indeed that was a huge benefit for early career researchers, for students working on the project, post docs working on the project, because on SUNRISE we had people from different levels of expertise, there were scientists which were very experienced, and done some extraordinary work in the field of energy, they were leading these efforts. And there were people at different levels.
GB: Hopefully we can do the same thing at TEA@SUNRISE as well.
SP: So then we are thinking about it now, we should certainly do the same with TEA@SUNRISE. So those same collaborations we are carrying forward at TEA@SUNRISE. So they are already a major achievement in SUNRISE program where we have already established collaborations with colleagues in the UK and different parts of the world and India. And we will carry that momentum forward and that’s going to benefit TEA@SUNRISE immensely.
Q4: Did you learn any lessons from installing solar micro-grids as part of SUNRISE?
GB: Also as part of the SUNRISE project you were involved in installing solar micro-grids in two schools and a health centre in rural India. Did you learn any lessons from this experience that we could apply to TEA@SUNRISE?
SP: I think that was a very good experience. As a scientist, you see that in your lifetime you want your research to make a difference in the life of people. So I think what was very pleasing in SUNRISE is you could implement solutions which are existing on the shelf. And we made a huge difference in the life of people who are not privileged with having basic electricity. So we learned many lessons. Initially you know identifying locations, identifying the site, identifying the right solutions with minimum troubleshooting. When we implement technology in an interior part of India we have to ensure that this technology is sustained for a very long time. And that the local people can manage on their own, we don’t really need additional expertise to maintain those devices and equipment. So we made sure that we implemented very robust technologies which are proven technologies in the area of the energy sector.
GB: So making sure that the stuff you’re installing is going to work for a long time.
SP: A very long time, a minimum five years to 10 years it should work. And then minimum troubleshooting. Because if something goes wrong we ensure the local people can fix this. So that’s a way we give employment to the local people also. It’s a sort of double benefit.
Q5: Did you face any challenges working with the local people?
GB: What about working with the local people, did you have any challenges with communications or training them to use the technology? What was your experience with working directly with the people who were going to be using the technology?
SP: The local people were very very forthcoming and very friendly, they really liked these ideas. They were very welcoming because for them it was benefitting in many different ways. It was benefitting school children for example, it motivated schoolchildren to come back to school. It has really solved many problems in the health centre. The maternity ward was running without electricity. So when we implemented the solution it has benefitted immensely the local people. And that was a major achievement in SUNRISE where we see our science has been directly implemented to benefitting people. So we devise solutions which address local problems. It is very important to identify the problems which we can address locally. And that’s a major lesson. And the local people were very friendly. We work in collaborations with them basically. And that collaboration was very fruitful in my opinion because they sort of offered their services free and they just came forward and they were very welcoming people.
Q6: Why is it important that nobody is left behind when we transition to renewable energy?
GB: So what about this idea of people being left behind, why is it important that we make sure that nobody is left behind when we transition to renewable energy technologies?
MS-B: As a scientist it is our duty to provide solutions and make the world better and better. So nobody should be left behind with the basic needs. I think that’s sort of a motivation in TEA@SUNRISE and also this was a major goal in SUNRISE as well. So ensuring that how we are going to implement energy solutions to ensure that everybody is getting access to the basic energy requirement. So I think it’s very important, if you want to make this world a better place everybody should have access to renewable energy solutions to address climate change. We cannot address climate change on this planet at different pockets. We have to address the problems across the globe. So ensuring that nobody suffers with the consequences of climate change. As scientists, all of us at TEA@SUNRISE we are driven by that. We feel that this is our duty to address these questions.
Q7: What are the benefits of locally manufactured, next-generation solar technologies?
GB: So the solar PV market is currently dominated by silicon, and most of that is manufactured in China. But at TEA@SUNRISE we are focusing more on locally manufactured, next-generation technologies. What do you think the benefits of this might be?
SP: So climate change is a very big problem it’s a terawatt scale problem so silicon alone cannot really address these solutions. We have to have emerging technologies, cost-effective technologies, and local manufacturing is extremely important because implementing solutions at a different level there are generations of energy storage, energy generation, solar cells. For example we have silicon solar cells, we have thin film solar cells, we have emerging solar cells like perovskite and organic solar cells. So it’s very important we work and find out the solutions locally, and have a production facility locally so that we can implement solutions as and when it’s required. So the solutions are at different scales – solutions in big metros are at a different scale to solutions in the interior part of India. There are different scales. So we really need to mitigate these energy problems by considering the local environment and local solutions. So it’s extremely important that we work on these emerging energy generation technologies like perovskite and organic solar cells and make it very cost effective and produced locally, not importing technologies from a different place. So that would address the major energy challenge access globally, otherwise one place or one country will dominate in the energy sector that will create a disparity in energy. We don’t want that to happen. This is one of the goals at TEA@SUNRISE that is very important. To achieve it how are we going to ensure local production. And we are all working on that at the moment, making sure that these emerging technologies we produce in UK we produce in Mexico, we produce in India. All our partners are capable of doing this. So that’s where I think this TEA@SUNRISE is going to be a game-changer for the energy sector.
Q8: What do you hope to see achieved through TEA@SUNRISE?
GB: And finally, what do you hope to see achieved through TEA@SUNRISE?
SP: Implementation of renewable energy across the globe, not only in India, not only in UK. I’m a scientist, I care for the planet. This has to be implemented on all continents. Africa, India, Mexico, wherever it is. So it’s very important for us. It’s a bigger goal but we can certainly have that ambition in mind. More than a hundred scientists shall come together under one roof and we can certainly make a big difference in the energy sector. So what I want to achieve at TEA@SUNRISE – I might sound ridiculously very ambitious – but I really want to implement renewable energy across the globe. And nobody should be deprived of renewable energy. So that’s my ambition.
GB: I think it’s good to be ambitious. Thank you Satish, thanks for taking the time to speak with me that was really interesting.
SP: Always a pleasure to talk with you and take care, bye bye.