In this interesting article at Ecogeneration, Grant Behrendorff discusses the collaborative development and demonstration of an optimised model for remote village electrification using renewable energy in India.
In India today, between 115,000 and 150,000 villages exist without access to electricity. Of these, many thousands are too remote for grid electricity to ever be a technically or economically feasible option. For these villages to be electrified, the only solution is a standalone power system – also referred to as decentralised or distributed generation.
The successful Bushlight Project, which has brought reliable energy services to more than 4,000 residents of remote Indigenous communities across Australia over the last seven years, is now leading a project to electrify remote villages in eastern India.
Established by the Centre for Appropriate Technology (CAT) in 2002, Bushlight’s focus is on community-scale solar photovoltaic based renewable energy systems supporting a broad range of energy services at the household and community level. To date, the Bushlight model has been successfully deployed in over 100 remote communities across Australia resulting in the installation of over 140 systems.
Through the Bushlight India Project, CAT International Projects is working in partnership with Gram Vikas – a grassroots non-government organisation from the state of Orissa – Tata-BP Solar, and the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency, along with a range of other renewable energy and rural energy and development sector representatives, to collaboratively develop and document a Village Energy Service Delivery Model (VESDM).
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