PROJECT GANESHA

Project GANESHA is a live demonstration of how scalable technology, local knowledge, and practical engineering come together to deliver lasting change. In rural Nepal, where energy access is limited and transport infrastructure fragmented, GANESHA is building a new model for electric transport and home energy — modular, mobile, and designed for long-term resilience.

Two pilot regions were strategically selected to test our model across different needs and conditions:

Dhading District

  • Hillside settlement in Dhading, Nepal, with brick and painted houses set against a backdrop of mountains and trees.
  • View over Dhading hillside town at sunset, with clustered houses in the foreground and mountains in the distance.
  • View of traditional hillside village homes surrounded by farmland and banana trees at the Dhading pilot site in Nepal.
  • Outdoor cooking scene at the Dhading pilot site in Nepal, with large pots, chopped vegetables, and a firewood stove.
  • Traditional stone house in Dhading, Nepal, with family members standing outside on a sunny hillside.
  • “Farmland in Dhading, Nepal, with crops, banana trees, and hillside houses against a backdrop of mountains.

    • Bardiya District

  • Community gathering in a courtyard next to houses in Bardiya, Nepal
  • Unpaved rural road lined with houses and vegetation in Bardiya, Nepal.
  • Tractor with trailer driving along an unpaved rural road in Bardiya, Nepal, with a person walking ahead.
  • Traditional mud-walled kitchen with open hearth and cooking pots in Bardiya, Nepal.
  • Entrance of Shree Prithvi Basic School in Bardiya, Nepal, with a blue sign above the doorway.

    • Each pilot area presents unique terrain, infrastructure limitations, and community structures — making them ideal for developing a system that can scale across Nepal and beyond. In Project GANESHA, we’re focusing on the mountainous regions of Dhading and, in Bardiya, the lowland plains (Tarai) with national park terrain. Both locations are challenging to access, ensuring the solutions we design are resilient and widely applicable.

    Listening Comes First

    Before designing any systems, the team focused on listening. Field visits were carried out across all three regions, engaging local stakeholders — including deputy mayors, ward chairs, women’s leaders, community forest officials, and education departments.

    A detailed physical survey was designed to uncover how people live, move, and access power. The questions explored:

    • Who lives in each community and how decisions are made
    • How far people travel to reach markets and essential services
    • What energy sources are used, and how often they fail
    • What kind of support (if any) have been received from governments or NGOs
    • How aware people are of renewables and conservation efforts
    • How gender roles and social structures affect access and inclusion

    This is the essential blueprint. Every step that followed has been built from these lived experiences.

    Community meeting in Dhading, Nepal, with local residents and project team members gathered outdoors to discuss needs and priorities.

    From Insight to Innovation

    As insights emerged from the field, the technical team engineered a modular battery system designed for off-grid operation and rural terrain. These systems are used to power:

    • EV-Rickshaws — compact, affordable electric vehicles for short trips between villages and towns, powered by fast-charging solar stations.
    • Home Energy Systems — providing reliable power for small devices, TVs, fans, and, in future, clean cooking systems.

    At the core is Project GANESHA’s lightweight battery thermal management system, built for extreme environmental conditions. The advanced packs feature:

    Integrated power electronics enabling local maintenance, repair, and system control

    Cell-level thermal management through innovative heat exchangers linked to a manifold flow

    Robust casing for durability in harsh terrain

  • Outdoor cooking setup in Nepal with a metal pot on an open fire and banana leaves used for preparation.
  • Four blue electric rickshaws parked in a courtyard in Nepal, with a scooter and dog in the foreground.
  • Electric rickshaw in Nepal used for short-distance transport between villages and towns.
  • Traditional clay cooking stove in Nepal with metal pots and an open fire.
  • White with green stripe Electric rickshaw in Nepal used in Project GANESHA pilot for rural transport.

    • Dhading: Pilot Site One

    Dhading became the first live test site — a working example of how GANESHA’s systems deliver meaningful impact in a decentralised, mountainous rural environment.

    The pilot includes:

    • 100 mobile battery kits distributed to homes and small businesses
    • Two solar-powered charging stations — one within the village, one roadside
    • Two EV-Rickshaws providing affordable public transport to nearby towns and schools, to improve the lives of locals and school children
    • One off-road test vehicle to assess battery performance while accessing challenging terrain, and system durability.
    • 30 homes piloting battery-powered daily energy use with continuous community feedback

    This is a fully deployed ecosystem, locally grounded and technologically future-ready.

    Project Ganesha Pilot Timeline from January 2025 to March 2026 showing phases over the months
    Traditional brick house in Dhading, Nepal, surrounded by banana trees and farmland.
    “Girl sitting outside her home in Dhading, Nepal, while a younger child writes in a notebook on the ground.
    Families and children gathered outside hillside homes in Dhading, Nepal.

    Scenes from Dhading: homes, families, and education at the heart of Nepal’s first live pilot site, with a detailed timeline from January 2025 through to March 2026.

    International Collaboration

    This phase also marks the start of international collaboration, with knowledge-sharing underway between GANESHA’s core team and other projects within the Energy Catalyst Programme — embedding gender equity, resilience, and development expertise into the next stage.

    Phase 2: From Pilot to Scale

    In Phase 2, Project GANESHA is transitioning from foundation to expansion, transforming field-tested systems into scalable, investable infrastructure. Building on the success of the initial pilot, this phase focuses on:

    • Global market engagement
    • Deeper technical integration
    • Strategic partnerships to take GANESHA from rural Nepal to other regions that need it most

    From Field to Global Opportunity

    While Nepal remains the core, GANESHA’s systems — decentralised, solar-integrated, and designed for resilience — are proving relevant well beyond their original context.

    The team is actively engaging with international networks, including:

    • Energy Catalyst Accelerator Programme (via Carbon Trust)
    • S-@ccess Forum, where battery assembly models for Africa, South America, and the South Pacific are generating significant interest
    • Global green investment conferences, such as the Sankalp Bharat Summit in Varanasi, India (Nov 2024), focused on rural energy access and transport innovation
    • Sankalp Bhahart Summit in Lucknow, India (11th & 12th Dec 2025)
    • S-@ccess International Conference 2026 in Mallorca, Spain (8th – 10th April 2026), where we are looking forward to presenting two papers.

    Each pathway represents a step toward localised manufacturing, investment mobilisation, and long-term sustainability — positioning GANESHA as a replicable model for diverse markets worldwide.

    India Market Benchmarking: Battery Swap Systems at Scale

    As GANESHA prepared to move from pilot to scale, the team looked outward, studying how other countries were already deploying electric mobility at speed. India became a natural reference point, leading the team to study the India Electric Rickshaw Market.

    Across India, more than five million tuk-tuks form the backbone of daily transport.
    By 2030, 80 per cent of all new vehicles in this category are expected to be electric, supported by national programmes such as FAME II and PM E-DRIVE.

    That scale has created a battery-swapping market now worth more than USD 1.2 billion, with established operators including Sun Mobility, Battery Smart, RACE Energy, Lithion Power, and Esmito Solutions.

    To understand what works and what still holds back wider adoption, P.A.K. Engineering and Intellecap carried out a comparative benchmarking study under the Energy Catalyst Programme. Their analysis focused on how India’s systems function commercially and what lessons could be transferred to rural and off-grid contexts.

    Three clear operating models emerged:
    • Pay-per-swap
    • Pay-per-kilometre (rental or subscription)
    • Pay-per-kWh

    Graph showing the projected market size growth of electric rickshaws in India from 2024 to 2034, rising steeply from around ₹1,000 crore to ₹50,000 crore.

    These models have made urban swapping fast and affordable, but most remain tied to grid power, limiting reach in remote or low-infrastructure areas.

    GANESHA builds on this foundation and extends it further.

    By combining solar charging, thermally-cooled battery modules, and fast-swap off-grid capability, GANESHA takes a proven urban innovation and re-engineers it for rural use.

    The result is a decentralised, zero-emission system designed to operate anywhere, independent of the grid, locally maintainable, and built for long-term community benefit.

    In doing so, GANESHA turns global insight into practical engineering, transforming lessons from India’s high-volume market into a model that works where power lines end.

    More to follow…