After 24 months of research, development, testing and collaboration, the PowerPath project has officially come to an end. Launched on 1 April 2024 with support from Innovate UK, the project brought together five organisations to explore a new approach to rural electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on the challenges faced by remote communities in northern Madagascar.
Technovative Solutions Ltd (TVS) actively contributed to the PowerPath Project. We spoke with Mohammad Ashadul Hoque, Director at TVS, and Project Lead from TVS’ end for the PowerPath Project, to reflect on our contributions, where he shared insights into the challenges the team set out to solve, the technologies developed during the project, and the significance of the work for the future of rural electrification.
For TVS, PowerPath was an opportunity to apply digital and technological expertise to a real-world challenge: how can remote solar energy systems be made more connected, visible and manageable in places where conventional communications infrastructure is limited or unavailable?
The answer began with understanding the bigger picture.
Rethinking How Rural Communities Access Electricity
Across rural Africa, extending conventional electricity infrastructure to remote communities can be difficult and expensive. At the same time, individual solutions such as solar home systems and other small-scale energy technologies can provide basic electricity access but may not always support wider productive activities or long-term local economic growth.
PowerPath set out to explore a different path.
The project focused on advancing a model known as Lateral Electrification, which combines renewable energy, smart energy management, digital technologies and local entrepreneurship to create a more affordable, reliable and sustainable approach to rural electrification.
At the heart of this approach are solar nanogrids that can serve groups of households and, where appropriate, be interconnected to form larger energy networks. The ambition was to create an electrification model that could reduce costs while also supporting local skills, employment and entrepreneurship.
The project's work centred on developing and demonstrating the technologies, business models and capacity-building approaches needed to make this model scalable. This included work on microgrid interconnection, smart monitoring, photovoltaic performance, financing models, local entrepreneurship and inclusive community participation.
Where Technovative Solutions Came In
As a technology-focused organisation with expertise in digital solutions, sustainability, automation and monitoring, TVS contributed to the development of the project's digital and technological infrastructure.
One of the project's key challenges was a practical one.
Nanoé, which operates thousands of solar nanogrids across rural northern Madagascar, needs to know how these systems are performing. Are they operating correctly? Are there faults? How much energy are they producing and using? Can operators access this information without physically travelling to each individual site?
In many of the locations where these nanogrids operate, the answer was not straightforward. Mobile network coverage is limited or unavailable, while the remote and difficult terrain can make physical visits costly and time-consuming.
TVS's work within PowerPath focused on helping address this challenge through the development of a remote monitoring and metering solution designed specifically for these environments.
In simple terms, the goal was to make it possible for data from remote solar nanogrids to travel from the field to a central platform, even when conventional mobile connectivity was not available.
Connecting Solar Nanogrids Where Mobile Networks Cannot
To tackle the connectivity challenge, TVS explored several wireless communication technologies before selecting LoRa, short for Long Range, as the most suitable option for the project's needs.
LoRa is designed to transmit small amounts of data over long distances while consuming very little energy. This makes it particularly suitable for remote, low-power applications where installing conventional communications infrastructure may be impractical or too expensive.
But the PowerPath solution went a step further.
TVS developed a LoRa mesh network in which individual devices can not only send and receive information but also relay messages between one another. This means data does not always need to travel directly from a nanogrid to a gateway. Instead, it can move through other nodes until it reaches a gateway that has access to the internet, allowing the information to eventually reach the project's central Cloud Data Hub.
Think of it as a chain of connected points passing information along until it reaches its destination.
This approach creates a more flexible and decentralised network that can adapt to the realities of remote environments.
Building the Technology Behind the Network
Developing the network required TVS to work across both hardware and software.
The team developed a modular data acquisition platform that connects directly with the nanogrid and collects information about its performance. The platform uses a high-sensitivity LoRa transceiver to support long-range communication, alongside dedicated microcontrollers that manage communication between the nanogrid and the wireless network.
A custom data acquisition board was designed and prototyped as part of this work, creating the bridge between the solar nanogrid and the wider LoRa mesh.
The system was also designed with practical operations and maintenance in mind. Each network node can use the same identifiable name as its associated nanogrid, helping engineers understand which system they are working with. The platform can also collect nanogrid and customer information at regular intervals and transmit it through the mesh network.
In other words, the technology was designed not just to collect data, but to make remote energy infrastructure easier to monitor and manage.
Bringing the Data Together
Collecting data in the field is only part of the challenge. That information also needs to reach the people who can use it.
To support this, TVS developed the gateway and cloud components of the monitoring ecosystem.
The gateway acts as the bridge between the LoRa mesh network in the field and the Cloud Data Hub. It receives information from the network, consolidates the data and securely forwards it to the cloud.
The Cloud Data Hub then provides a central place where authorised users can access, search, filter and download nanogrid performance data. Built with scalability and future connectivity in mind, the platform also incorporates secure authentication and role-based access controls.
This creates an end-to-end digital journey:
Solar nanogrid → Data acquisition system → LoRa mesh → Gateway → Cloud Data Hub
For operators, the significance is straightforward. Instead of relying entirely on physical visits to remote sites to understand how nanogrids are performing, the system provides a foundation for gaining visibility into distributed energy infrastructure remotely.
Making Operations More Practical
Another important consideration was how engineers would interact with the network in the field.
Rather than building an entirely new mobile application from scratch, TVS integrated the project's LoRa mesh firmware with the Meshtastic PhoneAPI. This allows engineers to use existing open-source Meshtastic applications to interact with the network.
Through this approach, engineers can discover and monitor devices, communicate across the mesh and support troubleshooting and maintenance activities.
This decision helped reduce unnecessary development effort while providing a practical interface for managing the network.
Testing the Solution in Madagascar
Developing a solution in the laboratory is one thing. Making it work in the field is another.
As part of PowerPath, TVS carried out field testing in Ambanja, Madagascar, to understand how the LoRa mesh network would perform under real-world conditions.
The test demonstrated end-to-end data transmission, with information travelling from a test nanogrid node through the LoRa network to a gateway and then onwards to the Cloud Data Hub.
But the field trial also revealed an important lesson.
The pilot nanogrid was located approximately seven kilometres from the gateway and surrounded by dense plantation and heavy vegetation. Hills and continuous canopy cover created significant obstacles for radio communication. Direct connectivity between the ground-level nanogrid and the gateway could not initially be established.
Rather than simply being a setback, the field test provided valuable knowledge that could not have been obtained through desktop analysis alone.
The results showed that the success of the network depends heavily on local conditions and deployment design. Elevated gateways, strategically positioned relay nodes and antennas placed above the vegetation canopy can help overcome some of the challenges presented by difficult terrain and dense vegetation.
The findings also highlighted an important consideration for future deployment: while the technology can support flexible and scalable connectivity, connecting isolated nanogrids in particularly challenging locations may not always be economically viable.
These insights helped establish a practical strategy for future commercial deployment in Madagascar.
From Project Development to Future Possibilities
With the core hardware, software and firmware development completed and the monitoring system validated through field testing, PowerPath has established an important foundation for the future of remote nanogrid monitoring.
The work carried out by TVS demonstrates how digital technologies can help address some of the practical challenges associated with expanding renewable energy access in remote regions. By enabling distributed solar infrastructure to communicate, share data and be monitored remotely, the project has opened opportunities for more informed operations and maintenance as these systems grow.
For TVS, the experience also strengthens its expertise in developing digital solutions for challenging environments where connectivity, sustainability and reliable infrastructure must come together.
PowerPath may have reached the end of its funded project period, but the technologies and knowledge developed through the collaboration provide a foundation on which future innovation can continue.
And as rural communities across Africa continue to seek affordable and sustainable access to electricity, the lessons from PowerPath can help inform the next steps towards a more connected, inclusive and locally driven energy future.
The PowerPath project has received funding from Innovate UK (UKRI Grant Agreement no. 10085837)
