Workshop Proceedings - Kolkata Workshop 31st July 2014

Proceedings of the Workshop on Sustainable Energy for All

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OASYS SOUTH ASIA Workshop

July 31, 2014

Proceedings of the

Workshop on Sustainable Energy for All

Exploring how Bottom-up Experiences can influence the Policy Discourse

Venue: The Pride Hotel, Kolkata, India

Organised by TERI, New Delhi


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Produced by:

The Energy and Resources Institute

New Delhi

Published on September 18, 2014

The Pride Kolkata, Rajarhat, Kolkata


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Acknowledgement

The activities reported in this report are funded by an EPSRC/ DfID research grant

(EP/G063826/2) from the RCUK Energy Programme. The Energy Programme is a RCUK cross-council initiative led by EPSRC and contributed to by ESRC, NERC, BBSRC and STFC.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent

the views of the institutions they are affiliated to or the funding agencies.


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Table of Contents

BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................ 1

SUMMARY OF SESSIONS ......................................................................................................... 2

INAUGURAL SESSION .............................................................................................................. 2

SESSION 1: RURAL ELECTRICITY ACCESS PROGRAMME – EXPERIENCES AND

LESSONS ....................................................................................................................................... 5

SESSION 2: BREAKAWAY SESSION - CROWD SOURCING OF IDE AS ..................... 7

PANEL DISCUSSION : LEARNINGS FROM THE FIELD : CONTRIBUTING TO POLICY

DISCOURSE ................................................................................................................................ 11

ANNEXURE I: PROGRAM SCHEDULE ................................................................................ 15

ANNEXURE II: LIST OF PARTICIPANTS .......................................................................... 17

ANNEXURE 3 PRESENTATIONS .......................................................................................... 19


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Background

Access to sustainable energy remains an important subject going by the current discussions

at the international level. Almost 1.3 billion people across the globe still do not have access

to electricity and probably an equal number have access to unreliable and unaffordable

supply of electricity which is also not sustainable. More strikingly, almost 40 percent of these

people are from South Asia, especially Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. These

numbers will not change substantially unless new strategies and intensified efforts are made

at various levels. Taking up the importance of energy issues, the UN General Assembly has

declared the decade 2014-2024 as the Decade of Sustainable Energy for All, highlighting the

significance of energy issues for sustainable development and for elaboration of the post-

2015 developmental agenda.

However, globally there is no universal approach to the provision of access to electricity.

Grid electrification has been the dominant feature in most of the countries including India

with almost 95 percent of the villages in India covered through the national grid. However,

if universal electricity access has to be achieved by 2030, grid extension alone would not be

sufficient in many countries and off-grid options both using mini-grids and individual

solutions would have to be adopted. While renewable energy based electrification of off-grid

areas have been primarily been done under government supported programmes, social

enterprises and different forms of non-governmental and community-based organisations

have also implemented off-grid systems with support from corporate and international

donors.

The field level experiences from these programmes can provide a number of lessons to

shape the national, regional and international policies on SE4ALL. To achieve this, a need

was felt to bring actors involved in the implementation of off-grid systems to come together

along with policy makers to brainstorm and discuss learnings from the field that can

contribute to the national and international policy discourses and assist to develop

sustainable, socially acceptable, institutionally viable and techno-economically effective

solutions for enhancing and sustaining rural electrification.

In order to achieve these objectives, a one day policy dialogue workshop was organized on

31st July 2014 in Kolkata, India, where social entrepreneurs, NGOs, practitioners, project

implementers from state renewable energy development agencies and academics

participated to deliberate and contribute to the bottom-up policy design for national and

international level policy discourse for Sustainable Energy for All by 2030. This one-day

policy dialogue workshop was organised as part of the ongoing interdisciplinary research

project, on off grid delivery options titled "Decentralized off-grid electricity generation in

developing countries: Business models for off-grid electricity supply”, (in short Off-grid

Access System in South Asia or OASYS), lasting from October 2009 to March 2015. The

project is led by De Montfort with TERI, TERI University, Edinburgh Napier University and


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the University of Manchester as research partners. The project aims to find appropriate local

solutions, which are techno-economically viable, institutionally feasible, socio- politically

acceptable and environmentally sound, for sustainable electricity supply to off-grid areas

The workshop saw active participation of 40 stakeholders from academia, government

agencies, private sector, project implementers and policy advocacy agencies.

Summary of Sessions

The day long workshop consisted of three key sessions, excluding the inaugural address and

concluding remarks. The first session was devoted to discussing lessons and experiences of

alternative models of rural electricity access interventions experimented by various

organisations.

The second session was a breakaway session consisting of three groups discussing topics

significant in the field of off-grid energy, which included ‘Innovations in technical designs

(AC vs. DC grid)’; ‘Innovations in delivery model: How to cope with growing energy

demand’; and ‘Electricity access, livelihoods and poverty escape’. The third session was a

panel discussion on ‘Learnings from the field: Contributing to policy discourse’, moderated

by Prof Subhes Bhattacharyya from De Montfort University with panellists from Mlinda

Foundation, Sambodhi Research, Onergy, Tezpur University, Rashtriya Grameen Vikas

Nidhi (RGVN) and Tripura Renewable Energy Development Agency (TREDA).

Inaugural Session

Mr. Debajit Palit, Associate Director, TERI started the proceedings welcoming all the

speakers and guests and highlighting the need for such a workshop. During his address he

gave a brief introduction to the OASYS project and explained the purpose of the workshop,

which was to gather the lessons learnt by different implementers in implementing off-grid

interventions in the country, especially from the eastern and north-eastern region of the


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country, where enhancing energy access is the principal issue. Drawing from his experience

in the field, he contended about the persisting disconnect in the sector in terms of real

challenges encountered by the project implementers and existing policy frameworks

supporting such projects. He emphatically pointed out the relevance of this workshop

towards understanding this disconnect and providing meaningful solutions in terms of

policy briefs to bridge this existing gap.

Prof Dr. Subhes C Bhattacharyya, De Montfort University, UK, who is also the Principal

Investigator of the project, then shared the work done under the OASYS project and the

lessons learnt through the different business models implemented in different sites with

different partners. He stated that the research focus of the OASYS project was to investigate

about different business models for off-grid energy projects. Giving details about the OASYS

project, he further stated that it was started in 2009, when energy access was not a

mainstream research theme. Gradual increase in global attention and initiatives such as

Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) has brought this subject in the mainstream. The project

had undertaken a vast review of existing knowledge and reviewed both academic and

practice oriented research. He elaborated on the focus that had been made on mini-grids

through the project and the experience of using electricity for productive purposes under

different projects that were implemented.

Highlighting the lessons learnt from the project, Dr Bhattacharyya said that mini-grids are

demanding business models which require a) sound technical design to meet the demand at

lowest prices and to minimize technical intervention post-installation; b) appropriate

organizational support; c) local integration; d) no single solution fits all approach; and, e)

business-like approach. He also shared the OASYS project achievements in terms of

publishing books, working papers and research papers in peer reviewed journals and

concluded by saying that there is an extensive scope of learning through co-operative means

and sharing experiences from various stakeholders.


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This brief description was followed by the keynote address by Dr. Leena Srivastava, Vice

Chancellor, TERI University and Member of the Executive Committee of SE4All. She briefly

elaborated on the evolution of SE4ALL initiative and the expected goals of this initiative.

She mentioned that on the global level, the organizations are grappled with the subject of

defining energy access. She contended that countries have their own pet approaches to

define access to energy, which is creating difficulties in defining ‘what constitutes access to

energy’ at the global level. She brought to discussion the plethora of challenges such as lack

of regulatory oversight, poor quality assurance mechanism, limited market information,

poor awareness and difficulty in distinguishing between light sources and their performance

in the field, being encountered by the sector. These are the issues she felt need to be

recognised, documented and find solutions for and then bridge a gap between grass-root

level and policy level. She further asserted that it is high time to create an environment

where in every nook and corner of the country, people are empowered to access of services

such as lighting, cooking and motive power according to their needs with best available

technology and minimum environmental damage.

Dr Srivastava concluded by saying that the approach for SE4ALL should be a country

driven exercise where the goals are global and are not necessarily translated in the same

manner to each country; each country has to define their own priorities and should be

inclusive enough so that a movement can be created out of it. She also shared that TERI

University had been recognised as the capacity building hub in India by the United Nations,

which would work towards attaining the goal of SE4ALL through training and workshops

organized by experts.

This was followed by a question-answer round where the participants put forth their queries

for Dr. Bhattacharyya and Dr. Srivastava. One of the participants inquired if there are any

studies that focus primarily on developing the maintenance system to strengthen the post

installation services. To answer this, Dr. Bhattacharyya mentioned that the system should be

designed in a way that requires low maintenance. He further stated that in the

demonstration projects implemented under OASYS project, a provision has been made for


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long term maintenance contract with the supplier. He also suggested for training the users

so that they can undertake some minor repairs and maintain the system on regular basis. Dr.

Srivastava also added to this by saying that such issues need to be brought before the

government as it is involved with national skill development mission that could help

providing human capacity, whenever required. She was of the view that all of these

programmes have to move together with ministries and departments of both national and

state level.

Session 1: Rural Electricity Access Programme –

Experiences and Lessons

The session started with a presentation by Mr. Sanjoy Sanyal, Country Director, New

Ventures India. In his presentation, he spoke about the various policy initiatives that

according to him need to put in place for engaging private sector participation in clean

energy access. The three critical features mentioned by him in this regard are – enabling

environment to ensure equity flow; end-user finance; and, paradigm of public-private

partnership.

Mr. Sanyal focussed on methodologies for private sector to find suitable locations to start a

business of an off-grid electrification project. Four factors that he said are most crucial to

identify such a site are a) un-electrified site, where grid does not exist b) banking access c)

should have some economic activity, which may be linked to electricity, and d) should have

less scope for grid expansion as grid competes with decentralised systems. He stressed upon

making the state government understand that the ability of decentralised systems to be able

to generate electricity in two months as opposed to central power plant which can generate

electricity in may be five years will play a crucial role in influencing a policy especially near

the time of elections.

This was followed by a presentation by Mr. K Rahul Sharma from TERI, who shared the

experiences from demonstration projects implemented under the OASYS South Asia project.

In his presentation, Rahul discussed the three business models attempted under the OASYS

project and the lessons learnt from the field. The first model he talked about is a community

managed model with a NGO support in the state of Odisha, where five solar micro grids

have been implemented. The second model is a community owned model implemented by

Mlinda foundation with the support from NABARD (National Bank on Agriculture and

Rural Development)/Financial Institutions where solar AC pico-grids are installed in the

Sunderbans region of West Bengal. The third model he mentioned is a privately owned and

operated micro-utility model of solar micro grids in the state of Uttar Pradesh, implemented

by Mera Gaon Power (MGP). Both Mlinda and MGP are TERI’s partner organization where

Viability Gap Funding (VGF) was provided from the OASYS project to implement the solar

mini/micro grids.


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The three examples showcased by him demonstrated the innovative ideas that can create

enabling environments for different stakeholders working within the rural energy access

space. Mr Sharma stressed on the point that due to varying characteristics of the socio-

economic development of the user community, maturity of the business model and the

strengths and weaknesses of local institutions, ‘one size fits all’ approach is either not

applicable or not required in every situation for the deployment of off-grid projects in rural

area. He also said that government subsidies should be continued in scenarios where the

viability of business models is low, and restructured to enable scaling up of interventions in

other scenarios.

The last presentation in the morning session was made by Mr Manish Kumar Pandey and

Ms Archana Tiwari, who shared the insights on experiences of implementing solar home

systems in the rural areas of Purnia district in Bihar under a project implemented in

collaboration with Bihar Rural Livelihood Project (Jeevika). Mr Pandey gave a brief

background of the Lighting a Billion Lives Programme (LaBL) of TERI which was initiated

in 2008 with Solar Charging Station (SCS) as a delivery option.

Later, other delivery options also came into being such as Solar Micro Grids (SMGs), Solar

Home Lighting Systems (SHS) and Integrated Domestic Energy System (IDES). The

presenters mentioned the role of Jeevika and how it played a significant role in the

successful implementation of solar lighting project in Purnia. Under this project, 1000

households have been covered by SHS in one year providing 2 light points of 2.4 LED lamps

and a mobile charging point to each household wherein, 40% of the hardware cost was

provided as VGF by TERI and the balance 60% amount was financed by Jeevika which gave

the village members the ability to secure easy loans and procure the SHS model. Mr Pandey

also highlighted the key lessons learnt through this TERI-Jeevika collaboration, such as:

Selection of geography is a key factor for implementing a business model; Customization of

technology as per the local needs, making ‘bottom-up approach’ essential for the sustainable

implementation of project; Strict monitoring of quality of various equipment at different

levels to ensure what quality is reaching at the grass-root level for which TERI has a

dedicated team to ensure the quality; Involvement of local level entrepreneur so that a win-

win situation is created for them and also livelihood opportunity is created for rural youth

and women of the community. Also, he pointed out that presence of strong Self Help

Groups (SHGs) base for micro-loaning helped in scaling up this initiative and provision of

VGF is essential as it creates a sense among users that they are getting some kind of rebate

and therefore try to grab opportunity and get SHS install in their homes. Lastly, the strong

presence of an organization in the region (Jeevika in this case) is critical in terms of

successful and sustainable implementation of the project.

The session was very interactive and the speakers addressed various queries that were put

forth by the participants.


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Session 2: Breakaway Session - Crowd sourcing

of Ideas

Post lunch, the workshop resumed with the breakaway session, where the participants were

divided into three groups to discuss topics significant in the field of off-grid energy. The

topics included ‘Innovations in technical designs (AC vs. DC grid)’; ‘Innovations in delivery

model: How to cope with growing energy demand’; and ‘Electricity access, livelihoods and

poverty escape’. Each group had 8-10 participants and was given around 40 minutes to

discuss on the above mentioned topics and then present the findings and issues that were

raised during their discussion. Each group was led by one facilitator who gave a

presentation afterwards on the conclusions resulting from the collective discussion of their

respective topic.

The first presentation was by Mr. K Rahul Sharma, who led the group for ‘Innovations in

delivery model: How to cope with growing energy demand’. The group gave their

perspectives on this issue from viewpoints of both academia and practice. Mr. Sharma

mentioned the following key questions with respect to strategies that may be adapted to

estimate and plan for growing demand for energy in rural areas where electricity projects

were being implemented.

- How do we incorporate different consumer/service categories in the energy plan

being made at the beginning of project execution for a village(s)

- What are the costs and benefits of oversizing systems at the outset of a project?

- What are the solutions for populations in remote areas with low paying capacities?

- How significant is demand growth in such areas?

The first key take-away point was on segregation of consumer or service categories while

making the village energy plan. It was discussed that while the load growth escalation may

be higher in the case of household customers (often, household customers start with basic

lighting and mobile charging but rapidly move towards fans, televisions and other

equipment of higher wattage), the load escalation might be slower in the case of productive

loads since the time required for productive activities and business to develop and mature is

longer. Hence, it was suggested that the segregation of domestic and commercial feeders

would enable better forecasting of energy needs. Further, it was also pointed out that even

within the domestic load consumers, categories may be developed for ‘low’, ‘medium’ and

‘high’ energy requirements based on paying capacities and income levels of the consumers.

It was highlighted that within the domestic segment, load demand growth varies

significantly between different income levels and hence plans for each category should be

developed separately.

This discussion was also linked to policies. Here it was suggested that the same

categorization of consumers should be made at the policy level as well and different levels


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of subsidies should be made available to each category. While some consumers can afford to

pay for future demand, others might not be able to with the resources available to them. A

final point regarding this discussion was on the need to take a service-based approach to

consumer categorization rather than an income based approach. The group suggested that

consumers may be categorized based on the type of service they are availing, that is, pure

lighting, lighting plus mobile phone charging, lighting plus fan and so on. Energy planning

on these terms may be much simpler than planning on a kiloWatthour (kWh) basis,

especially in areas where the number of kWhs consumed per day or month is very low.

The second key take-away point was related to system sizing and the impact of over-sizing

on the system efficiency and cost. Developers of off-grid renewable energy systems

mentioned that renewable energy systems have an inherent advantage of being modular

and this should be utilized more extensively in planning projects. Rather than setting up a

single large power plant at the outset (at higher cost and lower system efficiency due to

operation on part load until demand reaches the size for which the system is designed),

project designers should plan for modular systems which can be replicated as the village

load requirement increases. It was also highlighted that one major cost of system ‘extension’

occurs in the form of increased requirement of cabling in order to connect new customers to

the same power plant. Hence, even in this case, it would be beneficial to design smaller

decentralized systems (with shorter distances between the power plant and the consumers)

than set-up a large power system and accrue losses due to extensive cabling in the future.

The third key take-away point related to the availability of Government support for increase

in system size owing to increased demand. While subsidies are available for renewable

energy systems for the first system installed in an area, there is a lack of clarity on whether

an increase in system capacity in the future would also be supported under the same

subsidy scheme. Developers believed that it would be prudent to create savings for increase

in system capacity from the revenue collected from the current system rather than depend

on subsidy due to this ambiguity. However there is little field experience to support this

thought as the participants had not personally encountered a situation yet where an increase

in system capacity was required.

Next in the session was another group comprising of participants belonging to academia,

investors, NGOs, etc. The theme for the discussion of this group was ‘Electricity access,

livelihood and poverty escape’. The discussion focused on how best electricity access could

enhance the livelihood opportunities in the rural areas and thereby could reduce the

intensity of rural poverty in India. This group was led by Mr. Gopal Sarangi from TERI

University.

Three major sub-themes were chosen by this group on priority to give a structured view on

the topic. The first major sub-theme was ‘How to balance the long-term benefits of creation

of livelihood opportunities through off-grid interventions and consequent high frontloaded

capital cost of the project?’ The initial discussion revolved around the nature of the project


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and consequent need for meeting the capital cost of the project. Participants argued that if

the project is a business venture type, private investors would find it more useful to build

the livelihood component in the project design itself. From commercial point of view, any

off-grid electrification intervention without an inbuilt livelihood component may not

generate necessary profits and could enhance the risk of project failure. Examples were

drawn from the World Bank proposed A-B-C model, where successful off-grid energy

interventions are contingent upon three sets of costumers such as anchors (A), Businesses (B)

and Communities (C). Participants also reached at the consensus that if the project design

takes care of the cost of creating livelihood opportunities, it will also generate adequate

returns and meet the high capital costs. However, if the nature of the project is such that

private investors are unwilling to invest in such projects, and provision of electricity could

be considered as a ‘merit good’ given the poor socio-economic structure of the beneficiaries,

a subsidized model could be envisaged. In such cases, additional financial or other forms of

support are to be provided by the government.

The second important sub-theme was ‘What would be the policy architecture and incentive

structure to support off-grid energy interventions with provision of livelihood opportunity

creation? And how policy could differentiate between different service levels such as

lighting, entertainment and livelihood creation and accordingly design the incentive

structures?’ It emerged from the discussion that direct subsidies are found to be

unproductive and ineffective in many ways for making these projects sustainable. Priority

was laid on designing smart subsidies so that the beneficiaries should feel the ownership of

the project and put in their efforts too. Instead of providing direct subsidies, support should

be provided to build the capacities and skill sets of the local people. Subsidies may be

provided to reduce the interest burden on loans. Further, it was also agreed that support

should be linked to the performances. Moreover, if needed, a special purpose vehicle (SPV)

should be created to deal with the matter of disbursing the subsidies.

The third and final string of discussion focussed on the question that ‘Would it be more

lucrative for private project developers to venture into projects integrated with livelihood

creation?’ The group proposed varying ways of attracting private investors into the domain

of off-grid electrification in the country. It was proposed that local banks should effectively

be tapped as an important actor to facilitate and support these kinds of interventions. Bank

financing becomes an inevitable element for wide scale replication of these projects. Since,

these interventions are primarily done in remote and far flung areas with poor socio-

economic profile of the beneficiaries; bank financing becomes very much critical for the

success of the projects. It was also proposed to develop these projects as clusters so that

projects will generate scale economies for the investors and hence reduce the unit cost of

supply. Managing projects becomes more convenient if they are developed as clusters. Third

important point raised by the participants was about convergence of these interventions

with other such on-going programmes. For making these interventions sustainable, there is


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a need to tie these interventions with other on-going programmes such as National Rural

Livelihood Mission (NRLM).

Lastly, in this session, was the group who discussed on the theme ‘Innovations in technical

designs (AC vs. DC grid)’. This group was led by Dr. Parimita Mohanty from TERI. The

group discussed the pertinent points on the road map for the implementation of AC or DC

micro grid. The discussion was started around few critical questions such as what are the

parameters that need to be taken care of for selection of AC or DC micro-grids, what should

be the performance benchmark and quality assurance procedures that need to be taken care

of for DC and AC micro-grids, what are the current technical challenges and future road

map for these micro-grids. The group felt that there should be a set of criteria that can be

followed to select whether a typical location is most suitable for DC or AC micro-grids.

These criteria are the distance between households per sq.km of the cluster, radius of the

cluster, loads to be catered, voltage level and cost (capital and operational) of the overall

system. Each of these parameters can be further quantified for a given location and a

benchmark can be prepared which would help in selecting whether AC or DC micro-grid

will be more suitable for a given location.

As per the discussion, it had come out that if the radius of cluster is more than 500 metre

then AC micro-grids makes much more sense as the voltage drop for the DC micro-grids

will be large. Within that radius, both AC and DC micro-girds can be considered subject to

the cost of the overall system. In this regard, the comparative cost of both the micro-grids

providing same load, same households etc. are estimated. It was found that the cost of the

DC micro-grid is higher than that of the AC micro-grid even if inverter is added in the AC

micro-grid. Also AC micro-grid is appropriate when lots of AC appliances have to be used.

One argument was raised by the group that in case of AC micro-grid, cases of theft are likely

to be more because normal appliances are available on AC so they put forth a question that

whether an investment can be made for smart monitoring in the AC itself to make it much

more robust and theft proof.

The group, however, also highlighted that the efficiency of the DC micro-grids can be better

if it is powered through solar PV energy and all the appliances are DC based. In such case,

probably DC micro-grids are better than that of the AC micro-girds. Further few points

regarding design components to be incorporated in order to promote DC micro-grid such as

technical standardization, installation guidelines, mass availability of DC appliances and its

after sales services were also presented. Lastly, the group feels that for smaller cluster of

households, where cables do not have to be spread widely, DC grid is more appropriate and

in future if grid comes then an inverter can be easily put to integrate the DC generation with

the main grid.

These views, issues or findings were then taken forward in Panel Discussion to get feedback

from the panellists and other stakeholders present in the workshop.


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Panel Discussion: Learnings from the Field -

Contributing to Policy Discourse

Moderator: Dr. Subhes C Bhattacharyya, Professor, De Montfort University, UK

Dr. Bhattacharyya made few introductory remarks to initiate the panel discussion. He

recalled the main points stated by Dr. Leena Srivastava in her keynote address and hoped

the discussion to come out with essential points which could impact the policies in the field

of off-grid energy. He also mentioned that panel discussion would not only restrict to what

has been discussed in the breakout session but can look at the other dimensions as well such

as regulatory, financing, technical and socio-environmental aspects of off-grid projects.

Col. Vijay Bhasker, Country Director, Mlinda Foundation initiated the discussion and

mentioned four points which in his opinion should be considered to make any rural

program a success. The first point he raised was that a program should be socially inclusive

and the tariff fixation should be done keeping in mind the population at the very bottom of

the pyramid. Next point raised by him was of credit. At present the Reserve Bank of India

does not allow energy access lending as priority, if this energy access part is made a priority

lending in policy context then a large section of rural population can benefit. Thirdly, he

mentioned that entire system has to run as a utility and no piece-meal solution will work,

there must be quality and maintenance assurance on the part of those who install the

system. Fourth point he mentioned focussed on training of local stakeholders, especially the

Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE). The agency has to help them incubate the business so as

to create more demand and make them understand that the system has to run like a proper

business. Lastly, he concluded by saying that sustainability in a village development is not

only access to energy, it also perpetuates to a number of other things such as access to clean

drinking water, sanitation, farming etc. If these can be combined together, then a

sustainable, affordable and a long term solution can be achieved for rural areas.

Mr. Swapnil Shekhar, CEO of Sambodhi Research mentioned that the two types of

interventions i.e. livelihood intervention and an intervention on setting up of a solar plant

have different gestation periods and might require different expertise. He was of the view

that in energy projects, these two interventions are usually treated similarly where same set

of resources and expertise are applied to implement both the components in a project

whereas for livelihood generation, there is a requirement of intensive social inter-phase. He

stressed on embedding livelihood aspect into the planning process. He mentioned that

livelihood generation has to feed into the plant sizing decision, type of plant and the rural

people should be treated as consumers like it is done in urban scenario.

Mr Piyush Jaju from Onergy mentioned about the two kinds of consumers, one who do not

know about solar and the other who knows about solar but had a bad experience with it and

therefore held breaking the ice between the two as crucial for the development of solar off-


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grid energy. This is the reason he suggested to have a strong last mile network, provision of

prompt quality service, engagement with the community and understanding their needs

and find the right solutions. He opined that focus on ecosystem development across the

entire value chain is essentially required for the sector to thrive.

Mr D Sukladas, Project Director of TREDA highlighted the issue of political influence on

decision making regarding quantity of energy access to be given in an area. He supported

this by quoting an example where TREDA has provided solar home systems in one of the

regions of Tripura but the beneficiaries were demanding more. TREDA while designing off-

grid projects under MNRE’s Remote Village Electrification Programme had formulated a

project for solar home system with the capacity of 4 lights and a fan, based on the

beneficiary’s demand, but MNRE sanctioned only two light points due to which systems

with low lighting capacity has to be installed and therefore the people are not satisfied. Mr

Das hence suggested for a policy change in MNRE so as to make them more accommodating

towards customer needs. The system will be useful in a sustainable way only if it caters to

the needs of the users to a large extent. He also mentioned that the transportation and

system cost for north-eastern states is very high in comparison to the rest of the states in

India, which results in difficulty in the implantation of the programme.

Mr. Sadhan Mahapatra, faculty member from Tezpur University said in context of solar

home systems that though small is beautiful but in the present times the need is bigger and

better systems which have easy management such as mini/micro grids might be more useful

instead of installing hundreds of solar home systems. He was of the view that having a

preconceived notion that rural people will not have paying capacity to avail a particular

system is not always right. He also talked about including livelihood aspect essentially in

the energy access program for the sustainable development of off-grid energy access

projects.

Dr. Amiya Sharma, Executive Director, RGVN stated that solar energy as an option is not

only for poor, so instead of targeting only base of the pyramid population, the government

should also focus on putting everybody into it. He suggested that a clear cut approach on

the part of the government, in terms of when and what to provide, for energy access in rural

areas is crucial.

After the views from the main panellists, the discussion was also carried forward by some of

the stakeholders present as the audience in the workshop.

Ms Sudeshna Ghosh from Mlinda Foundation suggested that a cost should also be put to

social impact. She was of the view that it is not enough that while negotiating with banks to

put bankability of a certain project in terms of financial returns on investment; social returns

on the investment also needs to be included. This will be important for policy discourse.

Another participant raised three points critical for the development of off-grid energy

systems. First, increasing the supply side so as to enhance the subsidy disbursement process,


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reduce the monopoly of state nodal agency and more private participation to provide the

energy access. Second, how to have that level of awareness that creates a demand for

renewable energy products. He talked about making them as a status symbol. The last point

he mentioned was about incentivizing the energy efficient products market and an

appropriate finance mechanism.

Mr Rabin Roy from Suncraft Energy commented on the importance of training for

developing the human resource in off-grid energy sector. He suggested about linking

training of solar technicians with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) so that

manufacturers and integrators can take advantage of skilled personnel in the area of solar.

The session was concluded with the closing remarks by Dr. Bhattacharyya, who summed up

the crucial points that emerged during the workshop, which was followed by a thank you

note for all the participants.

Dr. Bhattacharyya then concluded the session by stating that service delivery is an important

area in case of decentralized off-grid systems and thus the focus needs to be moved from

just providing the infrastructure to provision of electricity services. He valued the gathering

of various stakeholders in this workshop which would help in taking the agenda forward

and to understand the major issues affecting at the field level. This was followed by a thank

you note for the organizers and all the participants. The workshop ended with Mr Debajit

Palit proposing the vote of thanks to the speakers and participants.


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Annexure I: Program Schedule

10.00 – 10.05 Welcome by Debajit Palit, Associate Director, TERI, New Delhi

10.05 – 10.20 The OASYS Project –Experiences and Lessons, Prof Dr. Subhes C

Bhattacharyya, De Montfort University, UK

10.20 – 10.50 Keynote Address

Sustainable Energy for All: Vision, Mission and Actions by Dr Leena Srivastava,

Vice Chancellor, TERI University

10.50 – 11.10 Tea/coffee Break

11.10 – 13.00 Session – 1: Rural Electricity Access Programme: Experiences and Lessons

(Chair )

Lessons from Private Sector led Off-grid Models – Mr Sanjoy Sanyal,

Country Director, New Ventures India, Hyderabad

Experiences from OASYS South Asia demonstration project – Mr K

Rahul Sharma, TERI

Experiences of implementing Solar Home Systems – Ms Archana Tiwari,

Bihar Rural Livelihood Project & Mr Manish Kumar Pandey, TERI

13.00-13.40 Lunch

13.40 – 15.00 Dynamic break-out: Crowd sourcing of ideas followed by presentations:

Innovations in technical designs (AC vs. DC grid)

Innovations in delivery model: How to cope with growing energy

demand

Electricity access, livelihoods and poverty escape

15.00 – 15.20 Tea/Coffee Break

15.20 – 16.55 Panel Discussion: Learnings from the Field: Contributing to Policy Discourse

Moderator: Prof Dr. Subhes C Bhattacharyya, Professor, De Montfort University,

UK

Panelists: Col Vijay Bhaskar, Mlinda Foundation; Mr Piyush Jaju, Onergy; Mr

Sadhan Mahapatra, Tezpur University; Dr Amiya K Sharma, RGVN, Mr D S

Das, Tripura Energy Development Agency; Mr Swapnil Shekhar, Sambodhi

Research.

16.55 - 17.00 Concluding Remarks


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Annexure II: List of Participants

S.N Title Name of Participant Organization Name Email ID

1 Mr Ashwani Ashok

Bihar Renewable Development Agency

[email protected]

2 Mr Anupam Baral Geetanjali Solar Enterprise Kolkata

[email protected]

3 Mr Souvik Barman Jadhavpur University

-

4 Mr Gourav Basu Jadhavpur University [email protected]

5 Mr Vijay Bhaskar

Mlinda India

[email protected],

6 Prof. Subhes Bhattacharyya De-Montfort University, Leicester

[email protected]

7 Mr D.S Das

Tripura Renewable Energy Development Agency Agartala, Tripura

[email protected]

8 Mr Loken Das National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

[email protected]

9 Ms Soumya Das

Jadavpur University [email protected]

10 Mr Sayandev Ghosh

Jadavpur University [email protected]

11 Mr Piyush Jaju Onergy [email protected]

12 Dr

Vijay Kumar James Lutheran World Services India Trust

[email protected]

13 Dr. Chinmoy Jana

Indian Institute of Social Welfare & Business Management

[email protected],

14 Dr Priyanka Kaushal TERI University [email protected]

15 Mr Sadhan Mahapatra Tezpur University [email protected],

16 Mr Manoj Kumar Mahata GIZ [email protected]

17 Mr Evan Mertens Rural Spark [email protected]

18 Dr Parimita Mohanty TERI [email protected]

19 Ms Sudeshna Mukherjee Mlinda India [email protected]

20 Mr Subhasis Neogi School of Energy Studies Jadavpur University

[email protected],

21 Mr Debajit Palit TERI [email protected]

22 Prof (Dr.)

Asik Paul University of Calcutta [email protected]

23 Mr Manish Kumar Pandey

TERI

[email protected]

24 Mr.

Srinjoy Panja Jadhavpur University -

mailto:[email protected]




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25 Mr

Dev Paikaroy ONERGY [email protected]

26 Mr Rabin Roy Suncraft Energy Private Limited

[email protected]

27 Ms Mitali Sahni TERI

[email protected]

28 Mr Sanjoy Sanyal New Ventures India

[email protected]

29 Mr Gopal Krishna Sarangi TERI University [email protected]

30 Mr Krishnapada Sasmal Research & Development Initiatives

[email protected]

31 Mr Subhro Sen

WWF-India, Sundarbans Programme

[email protected]

32 Mr

Debojyoti Sen NB Institute of Rural Technology, Kolkata

[email protected]

33 Mr K Rahul Sharma TERI

[email protected]

34 Dr Amiya Kumar Sharma Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Nidhi, (RGVN)

[email protected]

35 Mr

Swapnil Shekhar Sambodhi Research and Communications Pvt. Ltd.

[email protected]

36 Dr Leena Srivastava TERI [email protected]

37 Ms Archana Tiwari Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotion Society

[email protected]







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Annexure 3 Presentations


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Great example of

“universality”

Equity

Environment and climate protection

Competitiveness

Great example of

“universality”

Equity

Environment and climate protection

Competitiveness


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OASYS South Asia project

The Off-grid Access Systems for South Asia (or OASYS South Asia) is a research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of UK and the Department for International Development, UK. This research is investigating off-grid electrification in South Asia from a multi-dimensional perspective, considering techno-economic, governance, socio-political and environmental dimensions. A consortium of universities and research institutes led by De Montfort University (originally by University of Dundee until end of August 2012) is carrying out this research. The partner teams include Edinburgh Napier University, University of Manchester, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and TERI University (India).

The project has carried out a detailed review of status of off-grid electrification in the region and around the world. It has also considered the financial challenges, participatory models and governance issues. Based on these, an edited book titled “Rural Electrification through Decentralised Off-grid Systems in Developing Countries” was published in 2013 (Springer-Verlag, UK). As opposed to individual systems for off-grid electrification, such as solar home systems, the research under this project is focusing on enabling income generating activities through electrification and accordingly, investing decentralised mini-grids as a solution. Various local level solutions for the region have been looked into, including husk-based power, micro-hydro, solar PV-based mini-grids and hybrid systems. The project is also carrying out demonstration projects using alternative business models (community-based, private led and local government led) and technologies to develop a better understanding of the challenges. It is also looking at replication and scale-up challenges and options and will provide policy recommendations based on the research.

More details about the project and its outputs can be obtained from www.oasyssouthasia.dmu.ac.uk or by contacting the principal investigator Prof. Subhes Bhattacharyya ([email protected]).

OASYS South Asia Project

Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development,

De Montfort University,

The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK

Tel: 44(0) 116 257 7975

http://www.oasyssouthasia.dmu.ac.uk/


Workshop Proceedings - Kolkata Workshop 31st July 2014

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Transcript of Workshop Proceedings - Kolkata Workshop 31st July 2014