With nearly half of its one billion citizens without a secure electricity supply, India faces many difficult social and environmental challenges as its economy develops in the new century. Currently over 40,000 villages and communities lack access to the national gridA grid is a network of transmission lines, usually to distribute electric power ., suffering poor health, pollution, and poverty as a result.

Innovative local renewable energy solutions are being developed across the country, and interestingly, many of them are coming not from government, but from innovative local businesses.

In fact, the government’s energy programmes have so far failed to reach India’s most needy communities, some of whom pay five times as much city-dwellers for powerUseful energy can be mechanical energy, for example powering a fan. generated from dirty fuels like kerosene and diesel.

According to A. M. Devendranath of Feedback Consulting, India Feedback, the private sector, which has played a vital role in developing sectors like IT and telecommunications in the past, will be instrumental in supplying green energyThe ability to perform work, mainly kinetic, potential, thermal energy, but also in forms of gravitational, sound, elastic and electromagnetic energy. to remote communities in the future.

Entrepreneurs are already coming up with new ways to supply electricityA form of energy having magnetic, radiant and chemical effects. Electric current is created by a flow of electrons., he says.

Devendranath cites a recent project in the state of Bihar as a great example of locally developed green energy initiative. There, many young entrepreneurs are coming with innovative business models to reach offgrid areas to supply Electricity through Renewable EnergyRenewable energy is power generated from infinite sources, such as wind or solar power. Conventional energy is generated from finite sources, such as natural gas or fossil oil.; for e.g. A young team of Engineers educated in the West have set up 23 husk based distributed power plantsDecentralized signifies that the energy is being generated close to it where it is used, contrary to power plants that are usually built far away from where their energy is needed due environmental and technical reasons. Decentralized energy can be fed into the grid to support it or remain ... supplying power to nearly 50+ villages in the last 2 years and plans to scale up to 200 villages by the next year.

“There are many private entrepreneurs who are willing to come forward and work in this space but it requires some simple initiatives from the government to make their effort worthwhile,” says Devendranath. “To start with, allocate five percent of loans as mandatory to renewable energy, and do away with taxes related to renewable energy manufacturing and sales.”

Entrepreneurial solutions tailored to local needs and conditions will see more and more of India’s poorest communities enjoying a regular power supply, with the improved quality of life and increased employment opportunities that that brings.

Read the study on solar street lights industry in India on the GVEP International site (login required).