Harshit Vallecha

  • Research Associate for Community Energy Systems

Harshit is the Research Associate in Community Energy Systems at the STEER centre in Geography and Environment. He is working jointly on the Community Energy and Sustainable Energy Transition in East Africa (CESET) project and the Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme. Prior to joining STEER, Harshit worked as a Research Scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology, India where his work was focused on evaluating community renewable energy systems for sustainable electricity access in India. He has a transdisciplinary research background across engineering and social sciences. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and recently submitted his PhD thesis on Sustainable Energy Transitions in India. He is the recipient of a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship (2021) at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, USA for his research on enhancing rural energy access for energy deprived communities in India.

Harshit’s research interest lies across community energy, sustainability transition, low carbon policy, and climate change. His CESET project work is focussed on evaluating the landscape of Community Energy in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. His research investigates different ways in which Community Energy projects contributes in building resilience. He is working on identifying success factors and best practices for Community Energy projects relevant to East Africa. In addition, he will be providing technical and research mentoring to MECS partners for scaling up of modern energy cooking services through community energy resilience in Global South.