Today, a total of 1.3 billion people in the world remain in the dark and are denied basic standard of living due to the lack of electricity. Current technologies have not been able to scale to serve these people in rural areas. This project is focused on developing technology that enables a peer to-peer scalable DC microgrid that creates a marketplace for electricity. This results in people getting access to electricity who were not able to afford generating assets. It also incentivizes people who can afford generating assets to invest in more generation as now they are able to sell the excess power. The research will include designing/testing of low cost and high efficiency dc/dc power converter for the consumer module

After taking Power Electronics class 6.334 I was impressed by the useful applications of power electronics concepts which has powered most of our world for more than 100 years. Also this past summer, I worked at a power electronics company to improve USB powering of electronic devices. I am excited to combine these past experiences to help powering the rest of the world which still does not have access to electricity.