Master theses

A priority for the Solar Transitions project has been to facilitate the work of master students. At the University of Oslo, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, two masters theses have been completed in relation to the project so far. In addition, two Swedish and one Austrian master student have linked up with us, done their master projects on topics related to the ST project,  and got advice, contacts and comments from Solar Transitions team members. Currently, a Kenyan master student is involved in the monitoring and evalutation of our practical pilot project on village scale solar power supply in Kenya. The work of the master students build on and add to the Solar Transitions project's research in fruitful ways.

Ragnhild Vognild

In her masters thesis, Ragnhild Vognild demonstrates a way of identifying and understanding linkages between access to some hours of electricity supply per day from off-grid solar power supply systems and climate adaptation. She draws on a three pronged approach to adaptation developed by Siri Eriksen and Karen O’Brien, and shows how this framework can be applied as an analytical tool in case studies. She combines it with literature on poverty and energy supply in order to shed light on factors that influence the ways in which people are affected by and deal with extreme weather events and how the solar power supply plays a role in combination with other factors.

Reference: Vognild, R. 2011. Renewable energy and climate adaptation: Exploring the role of solar power supply for climate adaptation on Moushuni Island, India. Master Thesis in Human Geography, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Spring 2011.

Read Ragnhild's master thesis here (pdf)

Markus Millinger and Tina Mårlind

Markus Millinger and Tina Mårlind have studied solar power supply at the village scale in Chattisgarh state in India, focusing on how the electricity supply is designed and organized and how it works for the involved people. Their analysis includes the role of the operation and maintenance strategies as well as the quality of technical installations for the working of the power supply systems. Furthermore, they compare solar home systems and photovoltaic micro-grids both economically, organizationally and technically.  

Reference: Millinger, M. and Mårlind, T. 2011. Factors influencing the success of decentralized solar power systems in remote villages. A case study in Chhattisgarh, India. Master of Science Thesis in the Master Degree Programme Industrial Ecology. Department of Energy and Environment, Division of Energy Technology, Chalmers University of Technology. Göteborg, Sweden 2011. Master of Science Thesis T2011-349.

Published June 20, 2012 12:40 PM - Last modified Aug. 4, 2016 2:22 PM