New Zealand Award Scholar MSc Renewable Energy Systems

Energy, climate, and development — made decision-ready.

I work at the intersection of modelling, optimisation, and climate policy — from digital twins for energy systems to MRV-ready carbon pricing design grounded in Nepal’s institutional realities.

Carbon pricing & MRV Implementation design Energy systems modelling Optimisation & digital twins Community energy
Academic research Publications Google Scholar GitHub Substack
Ashutosh Dev

Academic Research & Modelling

Digital twins, process simulation, CFD, and system dynamics — built to be defensible and decision-facing.

Geothermal ORC optimisation framework
Optimisation + Digital Twin

Geothermal ORC Digital Twin & Optimisation

Parametric simulation → surrogate modelling → optimisation under CO₂/NCG disturbance scenarios.
DWSIM process model
Process Simulation

DWSIM Thermodynamic Modelling

Building reproducible process models for energy systems performance and design evaluation.
Fire/smoke simulation
Applied Simulation

Fire & Smoke Simulation (FDS/PyroSim)

Scenario testing and reporting for applied risk assessment and safety design.
System dynamics modelling
System Dynamics

Vensim Multi-sector Simulation

Modelling interactions across policy, adoption, constraints, and implementation feedback loops.

Carbon & Community Projects

MRV, institutions, field realities, and capacity-building — designed for implementation, not only design.

Carbon pricing MRV framework
Carbon Finance

Carbon Pricing MRV Gap Analysis (Nepal)

Institutional MRV mapping, reporting architecture, verification pathways, and registry/compliance logic.
Community energy intervention
Community Intervention

Community-based Climate & Energy Actions

Grounding interventions in local realities — adoption constraints, training, verification readiness, and durable program design.
Capacity building / training
Capacity Building

Field QA/QC & Implementation Readiness

Training, documentation, and data quality practices to make MRV and finance mechanisms implementable at local levels.
MRV institutional architecture
Institutional Design

MRV Architecture & Coordination Design

Designing roles, responsibilities, and procedural setups across ministries, data suppliers, and verification entities.

Publications

Peer-reviewed outputs — updated automatically via GitHub Actions.

View full profile on Google Scholar →

HKH Energy-Shock Analysis Map

Interactive district-level visualisation of Energy Tier Index (ETI) and Climate Shock Index (CSI) from the ICIMOD Vulnerability & Capacity Assessment (VACA) Survey across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region. Circle radius ∝ sample size; colour ∝ mean ETI.

Full screen
Click any circle marker to view district statistics • Use layer control (top-right) to switch basemap Open in full window →

Consultant Reports

Technical reports, policy assessments, and implementation documents. Add new entries to data/reports.json to publish a new card automatically.

Trajectory & Roles

Education and professional experience — focused on implementation depth, modelling rigour, and decision-facing outputs.

Jan 2025 — Present • Wellington, NZ

MSc Renewable Energy Systems — New Zealand Award Scholar

Victoria University of Wellington

Fully funded under Manaaki New Zealand Scholarships. Focused on modelling, optimisation, and implementation-ready climate/energy policy design.

Themes
Optimisation Digital twins MRV implementation Energy systems Policy design
May 2025 — Jan 2026 • Wellington, NZ

Teaching & Research Assistant — Faculty of Engineering

Victoria University of Wellington

Delivered teaching support while contributing to ongoing modelling/optimisation research with reproducible workflows.

Key contributions
  • • Tutorials: Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Engineering Research, Project Management.
  • • Research: Dual-Source Geothermal ORC digital twin (NCG/CO₂ effects, optimal split-ratio).
  • • Dynamic electric grid modelling using Vensim.
Digital twin Vensim Reproducible analysis
May 2024 — Jan 2025 • Kathmandu, Nepal

Project Engineer

People, Energy & Environment Development Association (PEEDA)

Applied modelling + implementation monitoring across clean cooking, solar, and municipal energy planning.

Key contributions
  • • Fire safety engineering (FDS, PyroSim) — biomass combustion in residential settings.
  • • Electric cookstove project (1,000+ households); solar pumping, storage, and micro-hydro monitoring.
  • • Municipal energy planning, implementation monitoring, and stakeholder-facing technical reporting.
FDS PyroSim PVsyst Homer Pro
Dec 2023 — May 2024 • Nepal

Research Assistant — Energy Systems & Technology Research Lab

Kathmandu University

Research on storage pathways + combustion modelling with validation-first reasoning.

Key contributions
  • • Reviewed TES pathways (sensible, PCM, thermochemical) for residential heating.
  • • Combustion/flame propagation of H₂/CH₄ mixtures in OpenFOAM; validated vs. Sandia Flame D.
OpenFOAM Combustion TES review
Dec 2022 — Feb 2023 • IIT Bombay, India

CFD Research Intern (FOSSEE Internship)

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Built OpenFOAM pipelines from geometry → mesh → simulation → reporting.

Key contributions
  • • OpenFOAM: geometry import, blockMesh, snappyHexMesh, multiphase simulations.
blockMesh snappyHexMesh interFoam multiphaseEulerFoam
Aug 2019 — May 2024 • Dhulikhel, Nepal

BEng Mechanical Engineering (Energy Technology)

Kathmandu University

Strong fundamentals across thermo-fluids + energy systems, forming the base for modelling and field implementation work.

Core base
Thermodynamics Heat Transfer Fluid Mechanics Numerical Methods Energy Engineering

Writing

Latest posts automatically pulled from Substack.

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