Hydrogen Village

The Challenge

Bali's rural communities face energy insecurity — dependent on a centralised grid powered by fossil fuels, with no local control and no path to energy sovereignty. Meanwhile, Bali receives abundant solar radiation and has strong winds in coastal areas.

Our Approach

Hydrogen Village is a community-led energy transition project demonstrating how small-scale electrolysis (powered by solar PV) can produce, store, and distribute green hydrogen as an energy carrier — providing 24/7 clean electricity to off-grid communities.

Co-Design Process

We worked directly with village elders, families, and local youth over 18 months to design a system that:

• Matches actual energy consumption patterns
• Can be operated and maintained locally
• Creates new economic opportunities (hydrogen as exportable fuel)
• Aligns with Balinese values of collective resource management

Technology Stack

The pilot system combines:

• Solar PV array — community-owned, rooftop and ground-mounted
• Electrolyser — splits water into hydrogen using solar electricity
• Hydrogen storage — compressed tanks for day/night and seasonal storage
• Fuel cells — convert hydrogen back to electricity on demand
• Micro-grid — distributes power to homes, school, and health clinic

What We Learned

Energy transition is not a technology problem — it's a governance, ownership, and culture problem. The most important innovations in this project were organisational: how the village council manages and benefits from the shared energy asset.

Next Steps

We're expanding the pilot to two additional villages and developing an open-source toolkit so other communities across Indonesia can replicate the model.