Off-Grid: Market Outlook and Lessons Learned

With over 12 years of experience in government and academia working with and assisting remote communities in the Canadian North to transition away from fossil fuels for energy generation, Rob Cooke is the Operations Manager for Yukon University's Northern Energy Innovation and the Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET https://www.uvic.ca/acet/index.php) Strategic Research Area (SRA) Manager for remote microgrids. Understanding and supporting the vital need for communities to want, develop and own clean energy projects in their communtiies, Rob uses his skills, knowledge and experience to aid communities and build capacity to ensure communities can develop and grow their own clean energy projects. Rob is also Canada's technical lead to the Arctic Council Sustainable Deverlopment Working Group Arctic Remote Energy Network Academy (ARENA https://sdwg.org/what-we-do/projects/arctic-remote-energy-networks-academy-arena-ii-1 ), a pan-Arctic capacity building program aimed at giving energy champions from remote communities the skills, knowledge and network to grow renewable energy projects in their own communities and regions. With 23 years prior experience as an aircraft electrical engineer with the UK Royal Navy, Rob has travelled extensively throughout the Canadian North and Alaska, mostly by dog team, and the broader Arctic. He lives in a small, off-grid cabin just outside Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon Territory where he shares his life with 42 Siberian Huskies and a quick thinking cat. Rob is a multiple finisher of both the Yukon Quest and Iditarod 1000 mile sled dog races.

Sohan is a research analyst on Wood Mackenzie's Power and Renewables team and leads the coverage of solar PV and onshore wind markets in Africa and the Middle East. He forecasts renewable installations in the region and provides insights on the latest policy and regulatory developments. He is currently based in London. Sohan has previously been a member of Wood Mackenzie's European long-term power team, where his primary focus was on power purchase agreement (PPA) and guarantee of origin (GoO) trends. Earlier in his career, Sohan lived in Nigeria, where he gained experience collaborating with a local power solutions provider on a project to install off-grid residential PV systems in rural areas of the country. Sohan graduated from Imperial College London with a first-class master's degree in Chemical Engineering.

Christiane Kragh is a visionary entrepreneur and Co-founder and CEO of Off-Grid Europe GmbH. Under her leadership, the company has grown into a provider of comprehensive technical energy and storage solutions (Ohms Box BESS, Much Cooler). She drives her team to continually push the boundaries of technology to advance the energy transition and create a brighter, more sustainable future for all.

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.

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