Our Expertise

  Dr. Slobodan Petrovic is a full professor in electrical and renewable energy engineering at Oregon Tech and a Senior Advisor at the Climate Institute. Dr. Petrovic has over 35 years of experience in various areas of science and technology, as well as in international development and in humanitarian projects. He is a distinguished technical leader and researcher with over 100 publications and conference proceedings: more than 250 various presentations, and short courses, and eight textbooks on batteries, electrochemistry, renewable energy and PV systems. Dr. Petrovic also has over 50 US and international patents in batteries, fuel cells, applied electrochemistry, catalysis, semiconductor devices, MEMS devices fabrication, packaging and reliability, and chemical and biological sensors.

Dr. Petrovic has been teaching renewable energy for 20 years. He is a co-creator of the only two, ABET accredited, renewable energy related programs in the US, the Renewable Energy Engineering at Oregon Tech and Alternative Energy Engineering at the Arizona State University. Besides teaching, he held positions in the industry related to renewable energy, such as a Chief Technology Officer and a Vice President of Engineering and has a proven record of the ability to bring a product from the conception phase to the market.

Dr. Petrovic is also a Founder and a President of the non-profit organization, Solar Hope (www.solar-hope.org), dedicated to helping developing countries through use of renewable energy. He has worked extensively in developing countries, mainly in Africa, including Gambia, and accomplished over 120 solar PV installations, impacting over 1,000,000 people. 

Our extended team has over 200 years of collective experience in international development, renewable energy, batteries, solar photovoltaics, semiconductors, and many other areas, experience demonstrated by combined over 500 journal publications and conference proceedings, over 80 patents, and 25 books. Our core and extended team partners have over 50 MWs of solar photovoltaics installed, over 120 solar PV installations in Africa, experience with over 500 MW of installed wind turbine capacity, and over 700 MWh of battery storage capacity. 

Our international development experience is distinctive, encompassing all aspects of economic and human development on an international scale, with focus on developing countries in Africa, Asia, and South America, including the Caribbean. While many groups involved in international development, while well-meaning, have little to no technical knowledge or sufficient vision for the projects of great impact, our team has top-level experience in the policies, economics, finances, and technical expertise to implement projects of the highest quality. Most of our partners and members of the extended team have also grown professionally first through international development and humanitarian projects; and sharpened their technical skills on the projects in Africa and South America, while earning their engineering degrees at the top-level educational institution in the US. Overall, our team would be largely made of exceptional professionals, with international development experience.  

Our collective experience in delivering education includes 70 years of university teaching experience, over 100 PhD and MS students graduated with advanced degrees in renewable energy engineering, general engineering, chemistry, and electrical engineering. The strength of our proposal is in this unparalleled ability to mobilize exceptionally competent teams for any type of energy-related project – battery storage, solar PV, wind, ocean energy, EVs, and others. The extended team is prepared to undertake projects of any size and complexity under the guidance of NthGrid . Through our university affiliations, we are in the position to engage support for any of the listed projects in form of educational outreach, offering combined degrees, short courses on the subject matter; as well as laboratory support for processes and products developed, e.g., battery performance measurements, PV module lamination parameters, or module output performance. 

We work with proven partners and suppliers capable of delivering components for our project in timely fashion and in high volumes when necessary. Some of those partners are even capable of co-investing in the project cost.