Short Bio:
Dr Clementine Chambon is the co-founder and CTO of Oorja Development Solutions, a social enterprise based in the UK and operating in India. The company develops solar energy innovations helping to address rural poverty and climate change. Oorja finances and installs community-scale solar systems and sells clean energy services for agricultural use. It helps marginal farmers move away from relying on diesel fuel, which is costly and polluting. Instead, it offers them year-round clean energy services for irrigation, agricultural processing and refrigeration of their produce at 20-25% lower costs. Oorja currently has a portfolio of 18 solar projects deployed in two states of northern India. 15 solar irrigation pumps, 2 solar grinding mills and a solar mini-grid together provide 1,500 people with affordable solar energy services. By offering pay-per-use energy services, Oorja is bridging the initial cost barrier and bringing solar technology within the reach of smallholder and low-income farmers. The impact measured so far is that farmers can irrigate their farmland throughout the year and their agricultural productivity has increased by up to 15%. There is potential to scale these solutions across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to benefit millions of farmers and bring about a significant reduction in farm-related greenhouse gas emissions.
Clementine leads Oorja’s technology strategy, engineering, fundraising and human resource management. She has technical expertise in cost-effective design of decentralised renewable energy systems and has gained extensive experience working in India over the past five years. Clementine has also worked as a renewable energy consultant for the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the European Commission. She graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge and completed a PhD in Bioenergy at Imperial College London in 2018. Clementine has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2020 Keeling Curve Prize for climate mitigation and 2019 Cisco Global Problem Solver Grand Prize. Clementine is an Echoing Green Climate Fellow, Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur and by MIT Technology Review’s Social Innovator of the Year in Europe. She has strong communication skills in six different languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi). Her passion lies in using renewable resources as a catalyst to bring about lasting socio-economic and environmental impact.
