Power to the People: Democratising energy through decentralised manufacture and production of affordable, reliable, sustainable solar power This project is focused on delivering innovation and technology transfer in renewable energy products to India, Mexico, South Africa and Kazakhstan. India, the main focus of the project, faces a unique challenge in energising both urban and rural communities. Current options for low cost power almost exclusively involve burning substances to release power. This is unsustainable since India will require 1000GW installed new electricity capacity alone by 2030 if it is to meet its growth projections. In rural Indian communities, pollution is also produced from burning crops and animal waste which, combined with urban fossil fuel use, produces choking smog in its big cities. Our project aims to deliver locally manufactured solutions for low-cost solar electricity generation to deliver environmental and energy benefits. By providing affordable solutions to solar generation, which can be combined with storage, simple solutions of night-time lighting and power can be delivered. This will have huge community benefits for education and the safety of people at night time, particularly women and girls. For the technology to be truly affordable, manufacturing must be based domestically in the region of deployment using locally produced raw materials. The ‘Make in India’ programme is central to the Indian Government philosophy, as is their expectation to produce 57% of India’s energy from renewables by 2027 – at least 140GW of which from solar technology. These government initiatives are critical to the GRTA project since it will drive the creation of local supply chains and employment in some of the poorest communities. Through decentralising the manufacture and deployment of affordable, reliable solar power into the hands of local communities, novel models of public participation and local energy ownership can be explored through the creation of new actors such as prosumers, renewable energy co-operatives and community owned power generation. SUNRISE, a £6.5M GCRF project, is growing research capability in India in the field of next generation solar energy systems that are affordable, reliable and sustainable. As such, SUNRISE partners form the core team assembled to respond to this GRTA call. This core is enhanced through the addition of other relevant collaborators from the ODA eligible countries of Mexico, Kazakhstan and South Africa. The transdisciplinary consortium comprises a combination of technical, commercial and socio-economic expertise and resources. As such, the group is ideally positioned to exploit the opportunity presented by a new, disruptive, solution processable (printed) solar energy technology - the perovskite solar cell (the underlying GCRF research). Due to the low capital equipment costs and use of earth abundant materials, perovskite technology has the potential to deliver locally manufactured, affordable, reliable, sustainable modern energy solutions for the climatic and socio-economic contexts in developing countries.  The GRTA funding will be used to accelerate: Delivery of 'at-scale' building technology demonstrators, translating research into practical application; Growth of global academic, commercial, NGO and government collaborations through a cohort of International Transdisciplinary Knowledge Transfer Fellows; Commercialisation of substantial relevant IPR and know-how in the solar energy space. Given the imperatives of the 'energy trilemma' global challenge (SDG7 - security, equity and sustainability), it is now timely to engage in the translational work needed to demonstrate perovskite photovoltaic technologies can be produced at commercially viable scale and cost. If this goal is achieved, it will present a global opportunity to address climate change in an equitable and sustainable manner. In just one hour the Earth receives enough solar energy from the Sun to power the whole of the world economy for a year! The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) supports cutting-edge research to address challenges faced by developing countries. The fund addresses the UN sustainable development goals. It aims to maximise the impact of research and innovation to improve lives and opportunity in the developing world.