Lighting up rural homes
New Delhi   04-Mar-2009
<b>Solar energy has the potential to bring light into the lives of rural folk.</b> Over 1.6 billion people in the world lack access to electricity even today. As per the Ministry of Power, 4.9 lakh out of the six lakh villages in the country were electrified as on March 31, 2008. Even today, in more than a lakh villages, life comes to a standstill after dusk. Inadequate lighting is not only an impediment to progress and development opportunities, but also has a direct impact on the health, environment and safety of millions o f people, as they are forced to cook and light their homes after sunset using kerosene, dung cakes, firewood, crop residue, etc. As per the latest World Bank estimates, 780 million women and children regularly breathe in particulate-laden kerosene fumes, inhaling the equivalent of smoke from two packs of cigarettes a day. The result is that two-thirds of the adult female lung cancer victims are non-smokers. Many families cannot afford a proper bottle and wick and rely on a fragile glass bottle and a piece of rope for a wick, locally known as dibri. Millions suffer burns and many homes burn down each year, primarily due to overturned kerosene lamps. Each kerosene lantern with a weekly fuel consumption of 1 litre of kerosene produces 0.1 tonnes of carbon-dioxide (CO{-2}) a year. In general, fuel-based lighting in the developing world is a source of 244 million tonnes of CO{-2} emissions into the atmosphere each year. This amounts to 58 per cent of the CO{-2} emissions from residential electric lighting. The light from a kerosene lamp is dull and such lamps are highly inefficient burners. They produce only 10-20 lumens ( against 800-900 lumens from a 60 watt incandescent bulb), making reading next to a kerosene lamp extremely difficult. Moreover, the cost per lumen-hour for kerosene lanterns is very high, compared to various other sources of light. As per a rough estimate, on a running-hour equivalence basis, the light output (Rs/lumen-hour) from a kerosene lamp is eight times more expensive than a typical solar light, 13 times more than from a DG-set, and 59 times more than grid power. <b>Solar lanterns</b> In such a situation, solar energy has the potential to bring light into the lives of the rural populace. Replacement of kerosene lanterns with solar lighting devices will ensure better illumination and a smoke-free indoor environment, besides providing opportunities for livelihoods, both at the individual and village levels. Solar lanterns can be provided either with small attached solar panels for the better-off villagers, as they are a bit expensive, or the lanterns can be charged at a central charging station during the day and rented out to the villagers/shopkeepers in the evening hours. . A viable business model can be developed, in which rural entrepreneurs can invest in small solar charging stations, and rent out the lanterns to users. Indian Oil has taken some pioneering steps in this direction. To begin with, it has started pilot projects consisting of two solar charging stations in rural western Uttar Pradesh. This experience has provided valuable inputs for future rollout of such charging stations in other parts of India with commercial viability. However, in the long run, such corporate social responsibility projects can truly succeed only when stake-holder interest is institutionalised through entrepreneurial development. <b>Institutional support</b> Additionally, factors such as institutional support, training, creating awareness and, most importantly, a relatively quick payback period for the entrepreneur, are equally important. A successful business model should also make available a relatively wide range of lighting options (example, from 1-watt to 7-watt lights) at different pricing points, which can fit into each of the income segments of the rural society. LED lighting systems, though a bit expensive today, would go a long way in reducing the upfront costs of solar panels, as they require a fraction of the power as compared to the CFL lights. The imminent reduction of costs of solar cells (due to technology advancement and scale of production capacity) is expected to reduce costs further and make solar lighting more affordable than it is today. Solar charging stations, if replicated across India in a big way, would also go a long way in reducing the subsidy burden on the Government on account of savings of kerosene distributed through the public distribution system. Such savings can be diverted to encourage more solar energy projects to cater to the lighting and other energy needs of the rural populace. <i>The author is Director (Planning & Business Development), Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.</i>