Electrifying villages with sunshine (India)

[jpak]

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/news/article_1285468.php/Electrifying_villages_with_sunshine%0A_FEATURE_

Hyderabad, April 1 (IANS) Twenty-three percent of 586,000 villages and 56 percent of 138 million households in India do not have electricity. Efforts to electrify these villages through a conventional grid have remained futile, opening up solar energy as an attractive option in these areas.

Electrification, especially in distant and hilly terrains, is not always feasible, technically or economically. Apart from high transmission and distribution losses, there is a drop of voltage at the end of a long line and also a low load factor since the bulk of the households do not have purchasing power to avail an electric connection.

Therefore, decentralised power generation systems based on solar energy prove to be a blessing in such areas, for meeting both the residential and production sector needs, reports Grassroots Features.

In a unique experiment, the National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) in Andhra Pradesh trained four illiterate women from a self-help group - KAMALA - on solar energy technologies in partnership with the Barefoot College, Tilonia, in Rajasthan.

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[JohnWxy]

1. Large corporations aren't interested in this kind of project. No big profit stream potential.

Since they are the big political contributors they drive the policies. So these grass roots projects don't get any attention.

Hurray for the "Women Barefoot Solar Engineers Association (WBSEA)". I hope we see more of this.
ONe thing about many of the solar energy designs is that the maintenance effort is not really high tech.

recommended.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. K&R. Great story! Thanks for posting this!

This should serve as an model for many other poor, rural or isolated parts of the world...:hi: