Ayah Mohamed, is a postgraduate research student. Her PhD research addresses small-scale off-grid systems in rural African communities with focus on Sudan.
She graduated with honours in 2014 from the University of Khartoum in Sudan as an Economist specialising in Economic Development, and gained her M.Sc. in Management of Development in 2016 from Turin School of Development in Italy.
Ayah developed her interest in renewable energy systems for isolated rural communities while she was working as a researcher for 2 years with a consultancy firm in Copenhagen, Denmark. She worked on inclusive development and growth policies research for the M-PESA, which helped through its transformative mobile money services in the dissemination of Solar Home Systems mainly in East Africa.
Research Interests
- Mapping of renewable energy potential (economic, geographic, and technical,)
- Electricity access via solar PV
- Economics of rural electrification
- Micro-grids load estimations
PhD Project
Driven by the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 aiming for universal energy access by 2030, many Sub-Saharan African countries (SSA) announced electrification targets with focus on rural communities. This study focuses on Sudan where only 38.5% of the population have electricity services, with access in rural areas of ~22% as compared with ~70% in urban areas. Therefore, this research will propose energy access pathways in rural communities in the Sudan to meet the 47% rural electrification target by 2030. Research on utility-scale renewable energy system has been widely studied; however, there is a gap in addressing small-scale off-grid systems, especially in understanding electrical loads and the criteria associated with the site selection which will be covered by this research.
Publications
Site suitability analysis for renewable off-grid system using GIS-MADM in Sudan, 2019, ICREN. Link
Contact
Email: ayah.mohamed@soton.ac.uk
Energy and Climate Change Division
Engineering and Physical Sciences
University of Southampton