|
Green Growth @ Mobile
Gasifier The IEA report (2010) says that 20 per cent of the worlds population, of which 85 per cent are living in rural areas, does not have access to electricity. Thus, out of the total 7 billion world population, 1.2 billion lack access to electricity. India, like many other resource-rich and energy starved countries, has a huge potential to capture this rural energy market to complement green growth at regional, national as well as the global level. As far as Energy Development Index (EDI) of India (0.3) is concerned, we are far behind China (0.55) and Brazil (0.62), primarily due to poor performance in rural India in all four sub-indicators of EDI. Per capita commercial energy consumption Share of population with electricity access Per capita household electricity consumption Share of modern fuels in household energy consumption Over the last two decades, India has taken several initiatives to develop and promote renewable energy (RE) technologies and RE based development models. Most of the successes are around captive power plants, grid-connected REDG models, and grant-based rural infrastructure development models. The replication possibility of such model is very little as none of these models provides any opportunity for inclusive growth. As far as collective learning is concerned, most of the first generation RE based village energy security projects has realised the following challenges as a barrier to scale up. High initial investment for RE technologies and ancillary/auxiliary infrastructures are beyond the risk-bearing capacity of the local investors such as big farmers and common interest group Low utilisation of infrastructures, mainly due to poor/fluctuation seasonal demand, leads to poor return on investment (ROI) Limited access and control over local resources (such as biomass, agro-residue, water bodies, etc.) reduces the scope of energy generation/use for development and, hence, leads slow development of energy market/demand in rural pockets.
The DA group, however, believes that the interdependent and interconnected social enterprise (SE) approach can very well address the above challenges while securing inclusive green growth. Based on this approach, TARA, the social enterprise arm of DA, has successfully tested out the technical performance of a newly designed mobile gasifier (by Enersol Biopower of Jaipur) which has the potential to reduce the energy delivery cost in an intra-village energy market. TARA has also developed a social enterprise model in consultation with communities and existing entrepreneurs. Business Model Like-minded social entrepreneur(s) from contiguous villages will take care of three sub components of the proposed business model, namely biomass processing; energy generation using mobile gasifier and retailing of energy/energy service to the rural community, primarily farmers. Thus, one CAPEX-heavy gasifier will buy biomass at the pre- decided rate from village level biomass entrepreneurs and sell bulk electricity to village level energy/energy service providers for retailing at pre-decided tariff. In a typical market condition, one 10kW mobile gasifier will move across 4 to 5 contiguous villages/hamlets and generate and supply power. This initiative will eliminate the cost of permanent T&D line and will allow the 4-5 biomass suppliers and energy retailers from each village to earn their livelihoods. Potential Impact Generation of 30 livelihoods through 8-10 micro enterprises (biomass and energy services) Generation of four livelihoods through operation of the mobile gasifier Additional income generation through sale of local agro waste/residue, invasive biomass Diesel replacement (approxi-mately 6000 lt/yr) through the use of AC pumps/post-harvesting implements Enhances adoption of mobile gasifiers Way Forward The DA group has already initiated a dialogue with farmer groups, having investment capacity and presently consumes a huge amount of diesel for irrigation and post-harvesting activities. Apart from successful pilot and orientation local financial institutes, this initiative needs a lot of inputs to enhance technical and soft skill of potential entrepreneurs and operators. Moreover, TARA is looking forward to leverage financial resources to carry out the pilot process in Bundelkhand. q Manoj Mahata Source: www.task39.orglinkClick.aspx?filetic ket=Q1H5nsQ3t130%3D&tabid=4426&la nguage=em-US |
