Solar PV for Rural Electricity in India – A Misplaced Emphasis (2014) (original) (raw)
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Solar Energy for Rural Electricity in India A Misplaced Emphasis
2014
decEMber 13, 2014 vol xlix no 50 EPW Economic & Political Weekly 60 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer, Dilip R Ahuja, Sudhansu Kumar, Aditi Malhotra, Anasuya Gangopadhyay and V S Ramamurthy for their comments on earlier versions of the paper. I am also thankful to those who gave feedback to a presentation at the Fourth National Research Conference on Climate Change held at IIT Madras during 26-27 October 2013. I thank the South Asian Network for Development and Environment Economics as involvement in one of its projects motivated me to dwell on the subject of this paper.
Adoption of solar photovoltaic lighting in rural India: Role of localization strategy
Energy and Buildings, 2019
Around 300 million (mostly rural poor) people in India have no or extremely limited access to electricity. Low rung of fuel such as kerosene is their main source of lighting, which has pernicious impact on public and environmental health. Also, poor quality of light from kerosene is a consistent challenge for schoolgoing children to study at home after sunset. Attempts to introduce off-grid solar photovoltaic technology in poor communities have experienced three key challenges of affordability, adequate repair and maintenance, and multilevel partnerships of different stakeholders. Funded by the Government of India, we implemented the Million Solar Urja (Energy) program to disseminate one million solar study lamps to rural poor households in 72 sub-districts of India. We adopted a localization strategy, wherein we focused on capacity building of local communities to foster adoption of solar lamps. By drawing cues from this program, we outline a short communication to demonstrate that localization strategy has a purchase to address challenges of affordability, repair and maintenance, and development of multilevel partnerships. Based on the lessons learnt from this program, we are currently implementing another program supported by the Government of India to disseminate 7 million solar lamps in rural poor communities of India.
SOLAR POWER FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF REMOTE/UN-ELECTRIFIED VILLAGES IN INDIA
Bodhi International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science , 2018
Energy plays a significant role in sustaining economic activities and human development of the country. India is a world’s sixth biggest economy and fastest growing country. The energy demand in the country has been raising in accordance with the development human activities. In India, still around 25 per cent (304 million) of the population was living without access to electricity and 40 per cent (500 million) of the population is living without access to clean cooking energy fuel. The lack of access to electricity for people make struggles to break out of the cycle of poverty and for countries with low consumption of energy, the growth rate is declined as well as difficult for them to attain the sustainable development. The objectives of the study are 1) to know the remote un-electrified census villages and hamlets in India, 2) to examine the pattern of installation of off-grid solar photovoltaic devices and 3) to identify the impact on the economic development of the rural people. The study is entirely focused on secondary data. The findings of the study reveal that Rural Electrification Corporation has endorsed 12467 numbers of remote un-electrified villages and hamlets in 24 states in India. Of which Assam (2406) is the first place in un-electrified remote villages and Odisha (2116) is second place followed by Chhattisgarh (1621), Madhya Pradesh (972), Jharkhand (832). In the case of un-electrified hamlets, Jammu & Kashmir (631) is the first place and Tripura (460) is the second place followed by Uttar Pradesh (356), Karnataka (150) Haryana (149) out of 24 states. The trend of solar street lights and solar home lights are slightly fluctuating during the study period and the trend of the solar lantern is increasing. The study found that the solar photovoltaic system is definitely to improve the socio-economic conditions of the remote and un-electrified village peoples.
3.PAYING FOR SOLAR HOME LIGHTING SYSTEM: A CASE OF UN-ELECTRIFIED VILLAGES IN INDIA
Energy is central to concerns about sustainable development and poverty reduction. It affects all aspects of socioeconomic development, including livelihoods, water, agriculture, population, health, education, job creation, and gender-related issues. Current patterns of energy production and consumption have direct negative impact on the environment and natural resources at the local, regional and global levels. Energy is an important factor for achieving the goals of sustainable development: social equity, economic growth and environmental protection. Worldwide, two billion people have no access to electricity and nearly as many rely on traditional fuels to meet their energy needs, particularly for lighting and non– lighting applications 1. It seriously affects their lives and also overburdens them. It further limits their search for educational and income-generating opportunities. In order to achieve sustainable development objectives, conventional approaches to energy must be reoriented towards promotion of energy systems based on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and cleaner fossil fuel technologies, which will make it possible, concurrently, to address social, economic, and environmental concerns.
Socio-economic and environmental implications of solar electrification: Experience of rural Odisha
Access to environmentally clean and renewable energy is critically linked with sustainable and inclusive development leading to improvement in overall standard of living of people in rural areas. Availability of such energy in remote areas can foster economic activities and create various avenues for livelihood, whereas lack of sufficient and secure energy may constrain economic growth and development. Given that solar electrification has been gaining increasing importance as a source of environmentally clean and economically efficient energy for people living in rural areas, the present paper is an attempt to understand its socioeconomic and environmental implications. Analyzing experiences from two villages of the Indian state of Odisha, the paper finds that households' adaptation to solar energy depends on a set of socioeconomic , demographic and institutional factors including governments' approach towards rural electrification. It is also found that solar home system has facilitated socioeconomic activities and improved standard of living of households, especially of women living in the area. The beneficiary households also perceive that solar electrification has improved environmental standard by reducing household pollution resulting from use of traditional sources of energy such as kerosene, though confirmation in this regard requires further investigation. However, households' adaptation to solar energy and realization of its potential benefits seems to be constrained by non-availability of maintenance and repairing facilities and access to conventional grid electricity under various programmes of the government. In addition to scaling up solar technology, an institutional framework with quality leadership and active participation of NGOs and other community level organization is necessary to link markets and policies effectively and enhance households' inclination towards greater use of this energy.
Solar PV lighting in India - conference paper
This study is based on extensive survey of selected photovoltaic (PV) programs in India and presents a comparative analysis of four prevalent solar lighting technologies, namely Solar Home System, Solar Charging Station, Solar AC Mini Grid and Solar DC Micro Grid employed for rural electrification in India. The study is focused on technical, financial, and institutional aspects of these programs along with the social impact assessment of PV based electrification in rural households. The findings of this study revealed that private entrepreneurship based delivery model have shown better performance as compared to the subsidy based delivery model. It is also found that beneficiary ownership play a vital role in the performance and sustainability of PV programs. We suggest that financial support, local need based technical innovations, developing local technical expertise and sensitization and training of all stakeholders are key parameters to enhance the performance of PV programs.
The power situation in rural India continues to remain poor with around one-third of the rural population without access to any form of electricity. The consequence of which is kerosene being used as a major source of lighting for un-electrified households as well as households with intermittent access to electricity in rural areas. While grid based electrification has been the most common approach, decentralized renewable energy options especially, solar PV systems have also been adopted as a cost effective mode of electrification. This paper presents the results of socio-technical assessment of solar photovoltaic interventions namely, solar home systems, solar mini-grid and solar AC pico-grids, which have been used to electrify selected villages in Sundarbans region of India. The study is focused on technical, financial, and institutional aspects along with the social impact assessment of PV based electrification in the Sundarbans region. The results of the study elucidate that, in general, the impacts of the solar PV solutions used for electrification have been largely positive, especially benefits of reduced kerosene consumption, ease in studying and cooking and reduced health effects. The study also finds that technology is not the only factor on which the viability of a program depends, but institutional and financial aspects also play a significant role. The need of the hour is to develop a strong institutional framework and enabling policies for achieving higher success rates in PV programs.
Solar PV systems in Himalayan villages: Problems and possible solutions
2007
Over the last decade Nepal has experienced a steady growth in solar photovoltaic (PV) system installations in remote mountainous communities. The reason for this is the growing understanding that grid connected infrastructure will never be feasible for these inaccessible parts of the country. Government subsidy programs, funded by foreign governments and INGOs, have caused a mushrooming of solar PV companies in the country’s capital, Kathmandu. However, while the development of a renewable energy industry is to be welcomed, the standard of the majority of the solar PV systems installed is questionable from a sustainability point of view. The designers, manufacturers and policy makers’ view of rural village electrification through solar PV systems is driven and biased by an urban, academic and business oriented perspective. Their perception does not take account of the end users’ local context and needs. Likewise the end users lack awareness and education about the use of renewable e...
Solar lighting for rural households: A case of innovative model in Bihar, India
Though conventional grid extension has been the predominant mode of electrification in the country, there have been several initiatives and policy support to rural electrification efforts through renewable energy means, particularly solar. This study evaluated a Solar Home System (SHS) project operational in one of the rural districts of Bihar, India and presents the analysis of technical, financial, and institutional aspects of project and its impacts. The study reveals that financial innovations, adopting standard processes, building local technical expertise, sensitization and training of all stakeholders are the key factors for enhancing the operational sustainability of rural renewable energy programs in India
Solar energy programs for rural electrification: Experiences and lessons from South Asia
Energy for Sustainable Development 17, 2013
South Asia accounts for 37% of the world's population without access to electricity. Such a situation continues to exist despite several initiatives and policies to support rural electrification efforts by the respective country governments including use of renewable energy technologies. While conventional grid extension has been the predominant mode of electrification in the region, the countries have also extensively used solar photovoltaic (PV) technology for energy access. However, there have been implementation challenges including technical, financial, institutional, and governance barriers. This paper, based on extensive literature review and survey of selected programs, shares the experience and lessons of solar PV programs for rural electrification in South Asia – both at the regional and country levels – and also presents a comparative analysis to exploit the cross learning potential. The paper suggests that output focused approaches, financial innovations, bundling of projects for concentrating energy loads, adopting standard processes and metrics, developing necessary infrastructure, and building local technical capacity are a key to enhancing the effectiveness of the solar PV programs