Empowering Rural Entrepreneurs in India

The first phase of the project included a study of the community’s socio-economic baseline via a survey of 25 households, as well as a first wave of community workshops and capacity-building activities. The project partners were in close contact with the local management committee throughout the project. The project team tried to use locally-sourced components where possible.  

Results & Impact

An initial evaluation against the baseline was conducted in May 2017. It showed a significant increase in the use of household electrical appliances, but not the expected rise in productive use. The rice mill, in particular, was not being used. The follow up revealed that while the mill had been used initially to clean the husk, the community was reluctant to use it because of the different quality of the flour produced. The choice of model for the locally-purchased mill was, therefore, a major obstacle to achieving the productive use goals. At the time of writing, the project team was considering possible solutions, such as replacing the mill with a different appliance. However, other entrepreneurs in the community have harnessed the new system. One example is a carpenter, who uses the system to run an electrical polishing machine. The goals of strengthening the community organisation and supporting local entrepreneurship to ensure long-term sustainability of energy access were achieved. The local committee is very active and now cooperates with other nearby communities to develop other electrification projects. The handover of the project from the project coordinator to the community envisages a final round of capacity-building activities and the supply of spare parts. The Bhamane project helped to further refine and adapt an existing design for a hybrid turbine-PV system. The Bhamane experience allowed the coordinating partner to better evaluate potential new projects in terms of their technical and socio-economic feasibility.  

Replicability

The potential of distributed generation for rural electrification in India remains underexploited. With certain adaptations this project has the potential for replication in the same region and other water-rich and off-grid areas suitable for hybrid PV-kinetic systems. A 3 to 5 kW system as designed in this project would be sufficient for operating a mill for five hours a day and for meeting basic energy needs. To date, the partners have already selected two villages in Goa state for a follow-up project, and Gram Oorja is preparing a further roll out of the productive use-focused micro grid design in the north east of the country. The project raised awareness and provoked interest in the region and it was presented to the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and to possible investors, as well as at conferences.   While household electrification has increased the general wellbeing of the local community, the system is underutilised and the project’s goal of increasing economic activity was only partly successful due to the low acceptance of the rice mill. The lesson learned from this is that the potential productive use devices need to be more thoroughly researched and tested before implementation.