Ruchi Gupta joined the Institute for Environmental Sciences (ISE) at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) in August 2017 as a PhD student to work on Energy Storage within the Swiss Competence Centre for Heat and Electricity Storage (SCCER-HaE) (http://www.sccer-hae.ch/). In her PhD thesis, she will be contributing to understand the role of energy storage technologies for the Swiss energy transition including technical aspects (e.g., intermittency of renewable energy technologies), socio-economic (levelised cost, benefit stacking, jobs and GDP) as well as policy recommendations.

Prior to joining UNIGE, Ms. Gupta was a Young Professional (Energy) at NITI Aayog, Government of India in New Delhi, India for a year where she conducted qualitative policy research and played a significant role in strategy formulation in the field of energy, environment and climate change. In particular, she contributed to the India’s National Energy Policy and Three Year Action Agenda on Energy. During her tenure, Ms. Gupta conducted research on ‘Assessing Impact of High Penetration of Renewable Electricity on the Indian Grid in Financial Year 2046-47’ under the partnership between NITI Aayog and Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ). Ms. Gupta also made significant contributions in the work on Energy Efficiency, Off-Grid Rural Electrification, Electricity Markets, Sustainable Development Goals and G20 Energy Policy.

Before serving NITI Aayog, Ms. Gupta worked as a “Programme Executive- Sustainability”, in the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) for five years. She was instrumental in setting up the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development at IICA. In her role as a consultant and trainer, she has trained around 200 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) & Sustainability officers from different corporates on how to design and develop holistic CSR projects in the area of environmental sustainability keeping in mind the national & global sustainability agenda.

In 2011, Ms. Gupta earned a Master Degree in Environmental Sciences from TERI University, New Delhi, India. Her long term goal is to carry out cutting edge research in the field of renewable energy policy and sustainability.