Ms. Nisha Jaishwal is a Mechanical Engineer with over 12 years of experience in the renewable energy sector, with core expertise in Fuel Switching and Electric Cooking. She has successfully designed and led capacity development programs focused on bioenergy technologies, energy transition, and energy efficiency, while integrating Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) into every stage of project implementation.Ms. Jaishwal has played a pivotal role in promoting market-based approaches, enabling the deployment of over 40,000 electric cooking solutions across Nepal without subsidies. Under the Nepal Renewable Energy Programme (NREP), she led fuel-switching initiatives that replaced fossil fuel-based systems in industries and MSMEs with pellet-based alternatives, contributing significantly to Nepal’s clean energy shift. While her action research with the WISIONS Innovation Lab addresses one of South Asia’s most pressing energy paradoxes: balancing national grid expansion with the survival of 2,000+ micro-hydro projects (MHPs) that sustain rural livelihoods. Her ACEF presentation, “From Survival to Sustainability: Grid Interconnection as a Catalyst for Resilient Micro-Hydro Ecosystems,” draws from action research addressing socio-technical barriers—aging infrastructure, tariff gaps, and community distrust—to propose inclusive governance models and blended finance strategies.