Rural Power Solutions Even Other States Can Emulate

The Hindu     3rd July 2021     Save    

Context: As a recent ruling by Rajasthan’s power regulator implies, enabling energy access must go beyond powering rural homes.


Indian strides in expanding energy access in rural areas: 

  • A near doubling of electrified rural households, from 55% in 2010 to 96% in 2020, according to World Bank.

Issues with power accessibility in rural areas:

  • Measurement issues: The measure of access to power supply has been the number of households that have been connected to the electricity grid. 
    • While this is a significant measure, it discounts large areas of essential and productive human activities such as public schools and primary health centres. 
  • Unreliable power supply: Despite greater electrification, power supply is often unreliable in rural areas.

Directives from ruling by Rajasthan’s power regulator

  • Solarise infrastructure: 
    • Unelectrified public schools: The project to be carried out by state discoms can electrify 1500 government-run schools and generate 15 MW of power in Rajasthan.
    • Government buildings such as primary health centres, panchayat offices, railway stations and bus stops could easily be transitioned to utilising clean energy.
    • Potential benefits: 
      • Enabling quality education, facilitating efficient implementation of mid-day meal kitchens, toilets, motorised water pumps, enhanced public space utilisation as COVID-19 care centres, relief camp during storms or floods.
      • The power that is generated could also be counted towards the discoms’ Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPO). 
      • With battery storage, the susceptibility of grid infrastructure to extreme weather events could be mitigated. This is called climate proofing.
  • Diversify infrastructure funding options: Through seeking Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds.
  • Leveraging decentralised model of power generation: A feasible option for rural electrification as large-grid based projects mostly add to supply of power in urban areas.
  • Convergence between government departments: E.g. Framework for discoms to work with State’s Education Department and leveraging CSR funding mechanism.