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ABOUT INSIC


The International Solar Innovation Council (INSIC) is a new international non-governmental organization. It was established in Helsinki 25-26th July, 2017, in Hotel Rantapuisto in Vuosaari and in the office of the Finnish Nature Conservation Association (Suomen Luonnonsuojeluliitto) in Lauttasaari.

The initiative came from professor Santi Pada Gon Chaudhury, who is to act as the global chairman of the new organization.Professor Gon Chaudhury has, for decades, been one of India’s most well-known solar energy innovators and advocates. He was the driving force behind India’s first kilowatt-class, megawatt-class and gigawatt-class solar power pilot projects and also made the original proposal about the Indian Solar Mission, India’s ambitious solar power programme that is likely to install at least 800 gigawatts of solar electricity during the next 25 years.

Professor Gon Chaudhury visited in Finland in October 2015 as the guest of Finnish environmental and solar energy associations. His visit to the Technical University of Lappeenranta produced a significant new innovation called micro solar dome or Surya Jyoti. Professor Gon Chaudhury invented the idea at the roof of the University, inspired by large plastic, dome-shaped roof windows and by the calculations on how the lighting produced by solar domes has roughly the same light/heat ratio as the best LED lights.

Surya Jyoti is a small plastic roof window equipped with a prism spreading the sunlight falling on top of it,

plus a small solar panel, battery and led-light. It can bring lighting for poor families with no grid connection with the investment of 5 euros per household. In the poor households with no grid connection school-children were forced to finish their studies immediately after the sunset, because there is no lighting. Even for the slightly more well-of but not grid-connected households lighting is scarce and their kerosene lamps consume on average 3 euros worth of fuel in a month.

Pilot projects testing the feasibility of the approach were extremely successful. When the first few thousand experimental versions were installed in a number of urban slums and rural villages not connected to the grid all the other villagers or inhabitants of the same urban area also wanted to have their own micro solar dome.

The spreading of micro solar domes is now a joint programme of four different ministries of India’s federal government: the ministry of rural development, the ministry of urban development, the ministry of science and technology and the ministry of renewable energy. The official goal of the programme is to install micro solar domes to 10 million rural and urban households within the framework of India’s present five-year-plan, after which the programme would have benefited 60 million people.

According to more unofficial estimates micro solar domes might finally be installed in at least 50 million homes in India and to perhaps 200 or 300 million

world-wide. The Indian Government has actively promoted the spreading of the idea to other countries. It played a prominent part for example in India’s pavilion in the EXPO 2017, the World Exhibition taking place in Kazakstan.

Because of his 2015 visit to Finland had inspired an important new innovation, professor Gon Chaudhury proposed the establishment of a new organization named International Solar Innovation Council for his Finnish contacts. The idea would be to catalyze the birth and further development of solar energy innovations that would have special relevance for the world’s two billion poorest people, most of which do not yet have a power grid connection.

The new solar energy technologies could benefit the world’s poorest two billion in numerous different ways, but their viewpoints and needs have been neglected both by the private (commercial) and by the publicly-funded (governmental) solar energy research and development programmes.

The aim of the new organization would be to catalyze the creation of other technologies like Surya Jyoti, meaning solar technologies that can simultaneously reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate deep poverty and the human suffering related to it.

 
  • Contact:

  • Email: info@solarinnovations.org

 

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    Prof. (Dr.) S.P.Gon Chaudhuri, Board Member| Honorary Chairperson

    Expert Services to Renewable Energy Power plants specially Solar PV and Biomass. Services to Off grid and Distributed generation.Services to Power and Energy sector.

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    Elina Mahonen, Board Member | Chief editor of the newsletter | Grant follow-up committee member

    Project managementin international level, including project planning,coordination,financial management, monitoring and evaluation. Specialized in developing countries.

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    Markku Tahkokorpi , Treasurer | Board Member | Editorial team member of the newsletter | Grant evaluation committee member

    Solar and ICT technologies, Techno-economics, innovation management. Several years of R&D work on renewable energy solutions for developing markets.

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    Pekka Järvilehto, Chairperson | Board Member | Editorial team member of the newsletter | Grant evaluation committee member | Grant follow-up committee member

    More than 25 year’s experience in energy technologies, energy policy and climate change. Specialist in renewable energy, decentralised power networks and energy storage.

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    Risto Isomaki, Vice-Chairperson | Board Member | Head of the Grant evaluation committee | Editorial team member of the newsletter

    Mr Isomäki is actively involved with the peat swamp rainforest, mangrove forest and seagrass meadows conservation and replanting programme of the Siemenpuu Foundation.

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    Petri Nissinen, Secretary | Board Member | Editorial team member of the newsletter

    MSc. in Environmental Engineering with a specialization in water treatment technologies. Engineering projects, design of water treatment processes, circular economy and energy efficiency in water supply and sanitation.

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    Richik GhoshThakur, Board Member | Editorial team member of the newsletter | Grant follow-up committee member | Chief editor of the webpages, INSIC

    MSc. In Applied Physics, specialization in Photonics having more than 5 years experience in execution of RE based innovative research projects. Currently also associated with NBIRT, a leading RE Research Institute in India as a