Small power plants bring light in a sea of darkness -- pity
there are so few of them.
Every night, the rural areas of the states of Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar in India plunge into complete darkness. In the last week
of January, David Ferris (cleantech journalist for New York
Times and Forbes) and myself undertook a gruelling road trip
across these two states. We saw only darkness in the districts
we visited until we came to the capital city of Uttar Pradesh,
Lucknow, brilliantly decked up in the lights of the tri-colour
to celebrate the 64th Republic Day.
Bringing
these peoples out of darkness must be the priority not
just of the Indian government. It is also important for
Indian businesses: these areas are untapped markets for
products and for recruitment. It should also be the
priority of successful Indians who have prospered in the
last two decades and who should be acutely aware that
the social fabric of the country cannot accommodate
inequality of access to basic services of this
magnitude.
There is a small glimmer of hope. A combination of
reasons (falling solar prices and rising solar
efficiencies) and grit and inventiveness of a few
entrepreneurs has led to the emergence of a model of
rural electrification called micro grids which can
electrify villages quickly and with small doses of
capital.
There are a few brave spirits working in the vast
states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, as our briefing note
will describe. These are people who have forsaken
careers in global semi conductor companies and large
Indian infrastructure organizations. There is even an
organic farmer from California. There is a medium
sized privately owned automotive company which has
diversified into rural electrification to round out this
motley crew. (Sun Edison, subsidiary of MEMC is a large
multinational has a micro grid site running in Madhya
Pradesh).
Taken together — in the course of the last two years
or so they have covered about 200 villages, a very tiny
fraction of India’s un-electrified landscape. However,
as we will describe, in our briefing note, the models
and technologies they are evolving are of incredible
importance.
The small capacity non-fancy plants provide basic
lighting services only: two lights and one mobile
charger per household for a monthly subscription of
about Rs. 100 per month (numbers vary between
operators). The lighting services are for about five to
six hours in the evening. The Rs. 100 (or about USD 2)
per month is the amount that these households pay for
kerosene and mobile charging. Cell phones are ubiquitous
but cell phone owners have to travel to the local towns
and pay as much as Rs. 5 per charge.
Companies get to this pricing level by being frugal
innovators. Solar technology seems to be gaining ground
even as the panels survived the terrible winter this
year when temperatures fell to near zero degrees celsius
and there were days on end with dense fog. Biomass
gasification based small plants work too provided
operators are able to maintain adequate supply of
agricultural waste within reasonable cost limits. The
trick is to restrict the system capacity down to a point
where capacity utilization is reached quickly without
having to draw the lines over long distances (which
increase costs and leads to losses).
The
challenges are incredible. Almost all operators agreed
that the problem of bad debts is the one most serious
issue. The operators have to collect small amounts of
money weekly or monthly and this is an incredible task
in an economy where liquidity is often an issue.
Overloading is another problem. Hooking up an additional
light or a mobile charger robs the companies of revenue
and also often trips the system and brings the whole
village to darkness. In these villages, where caste and
communal divisions run deep, companies have to often set
up separate micro grids for different castes or
communities. Entrepreneurs are responding to
these challenges with innovative business models:
building tighter management controls and setting up
franchisee or village level entrepreneur models where
the plant is actually owned and operated by a local
villager.
It is impossible to significantly impact livelihood
in these villages just by the provision of a few lights
and mobile charging. But our trip did uncover several
heart warming stories of change as villages are lit up
by modern electricity for the first time in human
history. Life becomes a wee bit easier. Children can do
their homework and women can space out their work more
easily. The dangers to health and safety from the
noxious fumes and naked flames of kerosene are avoided.
The most important impact, as often, comes from
entrepreneurship and professional management. Members of
different caste groups work side by side, women can
train to be plant operators and young men continue their
studies, while they work, in the hope of a promotion.
Standard practices in much of the 21st century world.
There is much that India and Indians can do to make
this glimmer of hope brighten into something more
meaningful. The Indian government could carve out
territories where micro grid players could operate and
spend public money to promote awareness and encourage
research and development. Successful Indians can get
together and crowd fund the moneys required to power up
individual villages and hamlets. India has recently
passed a law that requires large corporations to spend 2
percent of their net profit in CSR activities. These
large corporations can “adopt” larger villages.
In fact the time for a concerted national action is
now. The United Nations Decade of Sustainable Energy for
All provides the international momentum and support to
remove this curse on millions of her people. The brave
people running India’s micro grids need all the support
that the world can give them and more.