UPES report · 1. Clean energy research
UPES turns its roots in petroleum and energy into research on solar power, bioenergy, storage, hydrogen and the materials behind the energy transition. These figures cover UPES research publications on energy (source: Scopus).
UPES turns its energy heritage into research that powers the clean energy transition, from Himalayan microgrids to waste-to-fuel.
Number of energy papers on each theme (a paper can appear under more than one).
| Theme | Papers |
|---|---|
| Solar energy and photovoltaics | 270 |
| Biofuels and bioenergy | 193 |
| Hydrogen and fuel cells | 89 |
| Batteries and energy storage | 86 |
| AI for energy | 69 |
| Energy efficiency | 59 |
| Smart grids and power systems | 54 |
| Electric vehicles and mobility | 50 |
| Wind and other renewables | 34 |
| Waste-to-energy | 12 |
The full list of publications, with links, is in the annexure.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation awarded UPES, with IIT Roorkee and NIT Rourkela, a ₹5.15 crore project led by Prof Devender K. Saini to build battery storage, battery management and smart inverters that keep solar microgrids running in places like Siachen and Ladakh, where temperatures fall below –30°C. It is the first time DRDO has entrusted such a project to a private university.
With a ₹97.4 lakh ANRF grant, Dr Siddharth Jain's team is scaling up technology that gasifies unsorted municipal waste and converts it into methanol, targeting 2.5–3 tonnes of CO₂ avoided per tonne of waste and methanol at ₹25–30 a litre.
Dr Bhawna Gupta won an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship to research high-performance materials for next-generation batteries, fuel cells and supercapacitors at Heidelberg University, Germany.
Dr Shikha Wadhwa received a French Government SSHN-2025 fellowship and worked at CERMAV, Université Grenoble Alpes, in November 2025 on flexible hydrogen sensors.
Prof Sunil Kumar Khare of the School of Advanced Engineering published a study in the Geological Journal (Wiley) on the 2.46-billion-year-old Dongargarh granite in the Bastar Craton. It shows significant potential for rare earth elements, lithium and tin, minerals India needs for batteries and clean energy technology under its Critical Mineral Mission.
Other work includes research led by Dr Bhawna Lamba, worth ₹73 lakh, on turning waste into clean biofuels, and the Centre for Alternative Energy Research, which works on biofuels and waste-to-energy.
In UPES's mapping of its intellectual property to the Sustainable Development Goals, Affordable and Clean Energy is the second-largest of the ten goals the portfolio covers, after Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (UPES R&D, December 2025).