
42 Research Projects | 39 Publications | 24 Patents
NUST GOES SOLAR
PLEDGE: 100% RENEWABLES BY 2030
World-class universities, being hubs of research and innovation, have a responsibility to meaningfully contribute to combatting climate change through strategic planning of operations, effective sustainable policies, and governance models. As a large organisation with 4500+ employees and 18000+ students in 19 Schools and Colleges spread across the country, NUST’s operational carbon footprint is closely monitored, and measures are being taken to reduce the impact of our operations through effective sustainable policies and governance models. These measures will contribute to a clean and green NUST. One of the strategies being deployed by NUST to reduce carbon footprint is energy conservation and divesting from fossil fuel-intensive energy while shifting to
alternative energy generation methods, with a pledge to shift to 100% Renewable energy by 2030! In a major step towards achieving this objective, NUST’s Islamabad campus has reduced its dependence on the local grid by shifting part of its electricity needs to self-generated solar power. As of December 2020, NUST H-12 campus has a total installed capacity of 1 MW for solar power generation. Solar panels are installed at multiple locations across the campus, including rooftops and parking areas. Moreover, as part of its Green NUST campaign, NUST is actively working on water conservation and recycling and extensively planned plantation drives across all its 7 campuses nationwide.
Centre of Excellence in Energy
NUST collaborated with Arizona and Oregon State Universities to establish U.S.Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Energy (USPCAS-E) to address some of the outstanding challenges faced by the energy sector in Pakistan. Strategic goals behind USPCAS-E are to evolve into a Centre of Excellence in applied research catering to the energy sector and economy of Pakistan with the aim to establish efficient governance structures, sustainability, value-added curriculum, and capacity building, promote applied research to serve public/private sector and NUST-US students/faculty exchange programmes. The core mission of USPCAS-E is to efficiently address and implement the E3 criteria (Energy, Environment, and Economy) for sustainable societal development.


Promoting Sustainable Energy Production and use of Biomass in Pakistan
The energy sector in Pakistan is characterized by low levels of access to modern energy services, a high dependence on traditional fuels and an unsustainable dependence on imported fossil fuels for power generation. In order to support the sustainable introduction of biomass gasification technologies in Pakistan, NUST USPCAS- E research team initiated the project to build capacities of market enablers and market player in dealing with Biomass Gasification Technologies (BGTs). In addition, the project aims to strengthen the capacities of existing technology services providers so that they are able to support BGTs system, especially their operation and maintenance.
NUST is also working on Sustainable expansion of Electricity generation from biomass by providing the national government and provincial authorities in Pakistan, and commercial developers, with an improved understanding of the location and potential of biomass resources.
The launch of Pakistan’s first Biomass Cluster
The US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Energy (USPCAS-E) of NUST, in collaboration with the UNIDO-United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Pakistan Office (UNIDO) and Global Environment Facility, launched Pakistan’s first Biomass Cluster on January 24, 2020, at NUST H-12 campus. The United Nations Resident Coordinator for Pakistan, Mr Knut Ostby, graced the occasion as chief guest.
The idea of setting up a biomass cluster metamorphosed into its formal launch at NUST, as a result of a collaborative project of the

three stakeholders to demonstrate technical feasibility and commercial viability of modern biomass-to-energy conversion technologies in Pakistan. The project is aligned with the Government of Pakistan’s goal for 30% renewable energy contribution to the country’s power portfolio by the year 2030.
The Powering of Internet of Things (IoT) Devices via RF Energy Harvesting
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a robust network that allows inter-networking of devices with sensors and actuators to collect and exchange information. It finds numerous applications in various applied fields such as agriculture, environmental monitoring, medical and healthcare, energy management, infrastructure management, building and home automation. The IoT market is expected to grow from an installed base of 17.68 billion devices in 2016 to 75.4 billion in 2025. The technological advancement in the field of IoT has made it possible to develop low powered IoT devices.
However, in many cases such IoT sensor networks/devices are not easily accessible. Furthermore, they are usually powered by large size and heavy batteries which also make the battery replacement more difficult and inconvenient. Therefore, energy harvesting techniques are used to power them. A research team at NUST Research Institute for Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Studies (RIMMS) lead by Dr. Nosherwan Shoaib, has investigated the possibility of powering low power IoT devices via efficient RF energy harvesting system i.e. rectenna. In this context, the research team have conducted an indoor and outdoor RF field survey

