Research projects

Demand Side Renewables for Agricultural Base Load Energy (DeSiRABLE) project is outlined to explore productive uses of electricity to support socio-economic growth in off-grid rural Africa. Through our previous Energy Catalyst Round 4 project, EVERESST DC, we established that DC energy services, centred around an Anchor Base Load can provide better value energy provision than electricity supply […]


To date, it is estimated that around 840 million people, representing 12% of the global population (as of 2017), have no access to electricity with many more having no reliable electricity supply. Most of these people live in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and south Asia. Overall access to electricity in SSA has increased […]


The Newton Fund project between the Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG) of the University of Southampton and the Center for Research in Energy Systems and Technologies (CREST) of the University of San Carlos aims to support capacity building of CREST.  It covers two areas indicated below in electrification for low-carbon energy transitioning in the Philippines. […]


Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG) has successfully completed the research project, ‘Low cost, graduated PAYG solar home systems for Africa’. Through this project analysis of a wide range of Solar Home Systems (SHS) and system components were undertaken including a range of LED bulbs, lead acid batteries and some other DC appliances (refrigerator, LED TV […]


DC MiniGrid layout

Mini-grid based electrification for off-grid rural and remote areas has achieved a considerable attention among the energy poor developing nations, development partners, NGOs and donor organizations. Although Direct Current (DC) is native to Solar Photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation and some of the most commonly used off-grid appliances are inherently DC in nature, applications of DC mini-grids (DCMG) are very rare in developing countries.  Sustainable Energy Research Group […]


The Energy and Climate Change Division / Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG, www.energy.soton.ac.uk) undertakes research and development in many fields of energy covering all renewables and energy efficiency. The following areas are related to the activities in rural electrification and development.  Optimised solar home systems (SHS) Research and development to combine generation and demand side optimisation […]


This research project focused on sustainable rural electrification for poor off-grid communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Large scale data collection in several African countries was carried out to understand the energy needs by the rural communities and analyses of collected data revealed the sustainable pathway for off-grid electrification through Solar PV Mini Grids. This research led […]