KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 9

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Laboratory (RSEL), Kathmandu University recently organised a two-day international workshop on 'Research/Problem Based Education for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Development', in collaboration with the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), University of Sri Jayewardenepura (USJ), Sri Lanka, and Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), Bangladesh.

The main aim of the workshop was to bring different professionals working in renewable and sustainable energy field from academia, government, non-government and private sectors in one place and intensely discuss and share experiences on opportunities and challenges of renewable and sustainable energy development, technology transfer and possible ways to strengthen research-based education emphasizing circular economy.

The workshop was attended by more than 70 people from seven different countries (Norway, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Austria, Nepal, USA (virtual), and Australia (virtual).

The workshop started with the welcome note by Achyut Wagle, registrar of Kathmandu University. He highlighted the need and importance of research-based education and its application in real-world, out of the laboratory.

The opening session started with panel discussion moderated by Professor Sunil Lohani, head of RSEL, KU, which focused on 'research/ problem based education for renewable and sustainable energy development - challenges and opportunities' and was joined by panelists Professor Bhola Thapa, vice chancellor of Kathmandu University; Christhop Pfeifer, professor from Austria; Pramod Poudel, research director at UGC Nepal; Madhusudan Adhikari, executive director of AEPC; and Shanchi, coordinator of Himalayan University Consortium.

During the workshop, Professor Mark Z Jacobson from Stanford University and Professor Andrew Blakers from Australian National University in their keynote speeches strongly put forward that, in Nepal hydropower and solar, with pumped hydro energy storage system is the best combination to fulfil all energy demand at reasonable prices unlike limited potential of wind and significantly little use of hydrogen as it has staggeringly less round trip efficiency of around 25 per cent and excessively large cost per unit of energy generation.

Another Keynote speaker, Professor Daniel Kammen from University of California, Berkeley also put forward similar perspective and the importance of learning curves to reduce cost of the technologies.

Thor-Egil Eide, international project coordinator at USN, gave an overview of the current international collaborations of USN.

Professor Erik Trømborg and Thomas Martinsen from Norwegian University of Life Science shared their experiences on teaching and learning practices of renewable energy in the Norwegian university.

The workshop was a part of Norwegian Partnership Programme for Global Academic Cooperation (NORPART) 2021 project - 'instituting of research-based education systems for the development of renewable energy technology in circular economy (2022-2026)' funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research (MER) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).

A version of this article appears in the print on December 10, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.