This year’s conference is jointly organised by Wind Empowerment and the National Institute for Wind Energy (NIWE), India. It will be longer than previous conferences, spanning approximately two weeks: one week of training sessions and one week for the conference programme.

The overarching theme "Bringing Small Wind Turbines up to Scale" is a key issue to the integration of small wind into an energy ecosystem where photovoltaic is ever cheaper and hybrid solutions are becoming mainstream ideas.

WEIndia2018 will be hosted at two locations in India, Chennai and Kayathar, both located within the state of Tamil Nadu:

• Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu state, at NIWE’s main offices
• Kayathar, a small town in the state of Tamil Nadu, very close to Madurai, at NIWE’s Wind Turbine Test Station (WTTS) & Wind Turbine Research Station (WTRS)

Pre-conference activities (9 days) will take place at NIWE’s facilities in Kayathar. On the 9th day, participants will be transferred by bus to Madurai airport (2-hour drive) and by plane to Chennai (1-hour flight), where the Main conference activities (5 days) will take place.

In Kayathar, NIWE’s warehouse areas will be used for the hands-on manufacturing workshops, where all parts of a wind turbine, from blades and generator to tower and electronics will be constructed. This equipment will be bench tested, assembled, installed and field tested at NIWE’s Wind Turbine Test Station. NIWE’s Wind Turbine Research Station will also be visited and used for parallel activities.

In Chennai, participants will visit NIWE’s training center and main office facilities.These can be used on the last day, which is focused on Wind Empowerment’s internal processes, so fewer local participants are expected. During days 10-13 however, Wind Empowerment expects to have more than 150 participants, i.e. multiple state government participants from rural development, renewable energy and poverty alleviation departments as well as NGOs, universities and private entrepreneurs involved in rural development issues.

The conference programme and all other relevant information is compiled over at WEIndia2018.

The event is entitled Accelerating Financially Viable Hydro Mini-Grids: A Closer Look at Small-Scale Hydropower in S/SE Asia and will take place on 1st November from 12:45 until 14:00 at Level 4 of the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore. 

Panelists at this event will be:

• Dr. Binu Parthan – principal at Sustainable Energy Associates (SEA), a global consulting and advisory company, with over 20 years of professional experience in financing, policy and technology aspects of clean energy and climate change
• Bir Bahadur Ghale – founder of Hydro Energy Concern Pvt. Ltd., with more than 25 years of experience in the micro/mini hydropower sector
• Dipti Vaghela – Network Facilitator and Manager of the Hydro Empowerment Network
• Bikash Pandey – Director of Clean Energy at Winrock International
• Kapila Subasinghe – Vice President of Specialized Project Lending and the Head of Consulting at DFCC Bank, Sri Lanka
• Adrian Banie Lasimbang – senator for the national government of Malaysia, representing the state of Sabah
• Tri Mumpuni – Executive director of the People Centered Business and Economic Institute (IBEKA)
• Rana Ghoneim – Chief of the Energy Systems and Infrastructure Division at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
• Gerhard Fischer, who has over 35 years of professional experience in the development of hydropower

The magazine provides a broad picture of the most recent developments in biodigestion in Latin America and the Caribbean. It presents reports on applied research, case studies and practical information and was officially launched at the 10th RedBioLAC annual conference, which took place last week in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.

Download the magazine here (pdf, Spanish only): Revista Redbiolac 2018

A video summarising last week's conference in Brazil is available on Facebook, along with photos of the event.