08/07/2014
Let solar shine
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Author(s): Joel Kumar, Ankur Paliwal , Sayantan Bera
Dec 15, 2012 | From the print edition
Census 2011 throws light on the darkness across India. Of the 246 million households, 67 per cent get electricity from the grid, while 31 per cent have no option but to use kerosene lamps. In 2001, government initiated a nationwide programme to provide off-grid, clean alternatives, mostly solar, in remote areas. Solar has now lit up more than a million homes —a 100 per cent increase since 2001—though the programme has its share of loopholes. This situation presents both challenges and opportunities. The answer to the country’s energy poverty could lie in decentralised solar.
Joel Kumar, who assessed the programme’s performance, says the case for off-grid solar is clear and urgent. Ankur Paliwal carries out a reality check in Uttarakhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and Sayantan Bera in Assam
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Photo: Sayantan Bera
Even 65 years after Independence, more than a million families in India live in darkness after sunset. Neither the electricity grid reaches them nor do they have the money to invest in alternative sources of energy. A much larger section of the population, nearly half the rural India, connected to the grid suffers from erratic supply. They depend on kerosene to address their power needs. But kerosene is heavily subsidised and there are huge leakages in the system.
To eliminate the dependency on kerosene, over a decade ago the governmentstarted a programme to offer off-grid solutions at subsidised prices. Under the Remote Village Electrification Programme (RVEP), the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) offers a solar home lighting system (SHS).
Source: Census of India, 2011
Source: Census of India, 2011
It is a simple kit consisting of one or two CFLs, a solar panel, a battery and a solar charge regulator. For many, SHS was godsend. It saved them the expenditure on kerosene to get four-five hours of electricity a day. The programme has by now covered nearly 9,000 villages against a target of 18,000 and encountered a number of problems. The biggest is poor aftersale service, followed by malfunctioning batteries and CFLs. The Centre cannot monitor everything, defends the ministry. “We rely on state renewable energy agencies to ensure proper functioning of the programme,” says Gireesh Pradhan, secretary of MNRE.
Source: Census of India
Source: Census of India
The solar initiative is not restricted to the government. NGOs and private institutions are also offering expensive lighting options and financial help. For instance, Aryavart Grameen bank in Uttar Pradesh has provided loans for home lights to 50,000 families; the Exhibition Road in Patna is touted as the world’s largest market for solar equipment; and SELCO (Solar Electric Lighting Company) in Karnataka is the energy solutions provider for 135,000 rural families.
The government has provided solar electricity in 9,000 villages against a target of 18,000
The government has provided solar electricity in 9,000 villages against a target of 18,000 (Photographs: Ankur Paliwal)
The entry of non-government players signifies scope for growth in the off-grid solar sector. At a price tag ranging from Rs 8,000 to Rs 13,500, SHS sounds expensive, but this is just one-time investment. A family using kerosene lamps spends Rs 250 every month, whereas an SHS lasts at least 10 years. This means even an expensive system costs a little more than Rs 100 a month.
Such models offer hope for the country’s power woes but are limited in their reach, while RVEP is seen only as a stop-gap arrangement till the grid reaches remote areas. It does not have to be so; mini-grid solar can show the light. This is the opportunity for the future.
The Remote Village Electrification Programme (RVEP)under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is an elaborately designed mechanism to reach the powerless that involves a number of steps, from identifying remote villages to providing off-grid solutions. Ninety-five per cent of the solutions offered under the programme are solar appliances.
RVEP has a built-in system of monitoring on the ground, yet it is far from being successful. To find out why, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) visited Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Assam. Ground reports from the three key states are a mix of good and bad news. First the good news: people prefer solar home lighting systems (SHSs) over unreliable grid-based electricity. What is also evident is that the current format of RVEP limits its outreach and usage. People want systems that are capable of meeting their growing needs. The bad news is SHSs—a unit comprises one or two CFLs, a solar panel, a battery and a charge regulator—suffer from technical faults and poor maintenance services. Another pesky point is that the system of distributing SHSs is riddled with corruption.
It remains unclear whether the government is capable of starting a system to distribute energy to each household that will actually work. Chhattisgarh gives a ray of hope. It has a mini-grid system that provides solar energy to households on payment. The 2012-13 draft revision of RVEP learns from this experience (see ‘Draft guidelines for Remote Village Electrification Programme’ on p24). Will it go far enough?
Uttarakhand
The solar home lighting system (SHS) is lying unused in the house of Shiv Charan Singh of Baunth in Tehri district. Under RVEP, the Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (UREDA) distributed fully subsidised 70 SHSs in Baunth in 2004. Before this, he used to spend Rs 300 a month on kerosene to fuflfil his lighting needs. “In 2008, the battery of my SHS stopped working,” says Singh, who had to go back to kerosene. The battery comes with a two-year warranty and has a life span of five years. At present, 40 per cent of SHSs in Baunth are not working. Singh complained to the village pradhan but in vain. “When I contacted UREDA about the battery problem, I was told that the money kept aside to replace batteries was not enough,” says Pushkar Singh, the pradhan.
The beneficiary of an SHS has to pay for the battery replacement in advance. Generally, the pradhan collects 50 per cent of the battery cost (Rs 2,000) from each beneficiary. This money is given to the state implementing agency as fixed deposit in the name of the user. “We take the rest half at the time of replacement. This shields the beneficiary from paying the huge amount at one go,” said C P Agrawal, chief project officer, UREDA. In Baunth, a fixed deposit of Rs 91,000 was made in 2004. “After eight years, the maturity amount was Rs 1,40,000. We need Rs 2,55,000 to replace all the batteries,” says Manoj Kumar, project officer of UREDA in Tehri. People do not have money to spare for battery, says Pushkar. In 2010, the grid reached Baunth, but erratic power supply has pushed people to use kerosene.
Residents say a combination of grid power and SHS with improved servicing is the solution. B**g B**g and Galaghat villages in Pithoragarh district highlight more problems in the programme. Since the grid has not yet reached the villages, people are using SHSs they received in 2010. But the systems are not performing well. CFLs in the house of Urmila Devi in Galaghat stopped working within six months. These lamps come with a one-year warranty but people are not aware of this. “I spent Rs 100 on a new CFL,” says Devi.
Residents are also clueless about the existence of people trained to maintain SHSs. UREDA says it has trained 128 people as technicians but CSE found no technicians on job. In most of the villages CSE visited people did not know that the money they had given before getting an SHS was for battery replacement.
Changing times
Before RVEP was implemented in Uttarakhand in 2003-04, an NGO in Tripuradevi, Pithoragarh district, had started a programme to popularise solar solutions in the Kumaon region of the state. From 1998 to 2002, Avani provided SHSs to 2,500 families in 254 villages with funds from the European Union. Under the programme, the beneficiary had to make an advance payment of Rs 2,000 which was a part of the corpus to be used for replacing batteries. Avani also trained village youth as technicians and paid them a monthly salary of Rs 2,500.
After the funding stopped, the programme started facing problems in providing maintenance services. The NGO is now trying to reorient its approach. “We are experimenting with microfinance,” says Rajinish Jain, founder of Avani. It is starting a pilot project to sell solar lanterns manufactured in its campus. The manufacture cost of a lantern is Rs 1,600 while the market cost is Rs 2,128. A customer can buy the lantern after paying Rs 500. The rest is collected as installments of Rs 100 with Rs 8 as interest from the customer.
