Abhishek Asthana is the Director of Hallam Energy, the energy research group at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU). In 2009, he co-founded Hallam Energy and has since led and delivered more than 50 projects of industrial energy research, consultancy and knowledge transfer. He has won £3.5 million funding for SHU, co-authored 37 scientific papers and 1 book, invented 4 patents and developed 5 commercial software packages. He is the course director for BEng Energy Engineering and MEng and BEng Chemical Engineering programs at the university. In 2015, he established a Doctoral Training Alliance (DTA) in Energy to train PhD students conducting energy research. The DTA has now grown to 90 PhD students and 180 Supervisors across 19 British Universities in the University Alliance, UK, and Abhishek is currently its Deputy Director. He also recently led the alliance to success in winning €6.5 Million funding from the European Commission’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions COFUND to further expand the DTA program. He is a reviewer for many peer-reviewed journals and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Total renewable energy consumption in the world is expected to increase by almost 30% over 2018-2023, covering 40% of global energy demand growth. The talk will focus on the analysis of the current renewable energy markets in the world and present forecasts for growth based on the upcoming policies, government incentives and estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA). It will cover the major renewable energy sources – bioenergy, hydropower, wind and solar PV as well as analysis of various geographical regions for growth potential and market trends. It will break down the share of renewables in the electricity, heat and transport sectors. It would analyze the current status of deployment and costs for novel advanced biofuels. It would also draw comparisons with electric cars, the extent of their renewable electricity utilization and decarbonization potential. It would include the contribution of renewables to road transport demand over the next 5 years and focus on the main biofuels available to decarbonize road freight, now and in the long term.