Lucas Richard has been working with Nanoé since 2018. He completed his PhD in France and now works in Madagascar as a mesh-grid project manager.
Nanoé is a French-Malagasy social and solidarity enterprise founded in 2017. It aims to develop a rural electrification model based on renewable energy, local enterpreneurship and information technologies.
Nanoé offers a progressive and collaborative bottom-up electrification model that builds decarbonised and decentralised electric infrastructures from nanogrid to mesh-grid and all the way to national grid connection.
What is your professional background, your technical expertise and your centres of interest ?
After my postgraduate studies in electric engineering and a PhD in electronic and power grids, I am now a mesh-grid project manager at Nanoé. I have very multidisciplinary competencies in electric and electronic engineering all the way to control systems. I also have strong knowledge of the energy access environment and operational issues as well as project and building site management.
Why did Nanoé join the PowerPath project?
Nanoé joined forces with high-level industry and academic partners on the PowerPath project, such as Technovative Solutions, the Materials Innovation Centre (MatIC), TWI and The Power Hub to facilitate local innovation in energy access in Madagascar. Nanoé is a beneficiary of the PowerPath project throughout the innovation activities conducted by the work carried out via the project.
How do these challenges relate to the expectations of the European Union (EU)?
The EU and the UK regularly fund development projects in order to reach the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 for developing countries. By offering a new electrification model in rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa, Nanoé directly tackles these ambitious challenges.
How is your experience in R&D and engineering informing your current work within the project?
I have a PhD in electric and electronic networks and strong experience in R&D and engineering. I dedicate my skills to the project on a daily basis as a project manager, whether it be in technical production or the exploitation of mesh-grids. I am directly involved in the majority of the work on PowerPath and I supervise the work of my colleagues at Nanoé on the project.
I am also the direct point of contact of the different project partners. More specifically, we work on developing and installing decentrialised DC mesh-grids and offer new electric access services to our clients.
Does your company have aspirations to participate in future funded programmes – whether a continuation of the project and the current research – or in addressing other research or industrial challenges?
Nanoé is planning on participating in future public-funded programmes, always with the goal of facilitating innovation and to allow the company to reach its growth and development targets. Nanoé still needs a few years of R&D before reaching a financial stability model with a mature technology ready to be deployed at the industrial scale. The project will enable the replication of the electrification model in other Sub-Saharan Africa locations.