Rural Electrification

The backbone of the rural economy is often considered as rural electrification. Energy
requirements in rural areas mainly include cooking, lighting, Irrigation, farm machinery, Water
heating and Cottage industry. The locally available resources hold the capability of rural
electrification. The direct effect of rural electrification can be seen on improved farm
productivity, improved health and education and economic development by creating employment
in rural areas which in turn helps in reverse migration. The main features of rural electrification
includes developing electricity infrastructure, providing connectivity to households, maintaining
power quality, affordable rates and providing clean and reliable power in an efficient way.

Technological Alternatives for Rural Electrification

MNRE has been created two new strategies for achieving the concept of Gram Urja
Swaraj. These are discussed under following sub-headings.

Grid Connected Power

Indian governments electrification strategy mainly focuses to extend the central grid to
rural villages. Also, grid-interactive renewable projects are private investments with affordable
tariff rate as decided by State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERC). The power from
renewable resources is further categorized in following four sections:

Wind Power: The states like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka and Rajasthan has immense potential approximately 102788 MW of wind
power generation in India. The total capacity of 22465MW has been installed by
December 2014. Various demonstration plants have been established in 9 states with an
aggregate capacity of 71 MW.
Wind turbines are used for harnessing the wind power for electricity generation. When
the wind blows above a particular speed on specific locations, wind turbines are installed
to harness the power by virtue of wind flow. Height shows a significant impact on the
wind speed; speed is generally measured at a standard height of 10m. The two types of
wind turbines namely stall regulated and pitch regulated are mainly used in India. The
advantage of pitch regulated wind turbines over stall regulated wind turbines is that prior
 has adjustable rotor blades, thus angle of attach can be changed according to wind speed
while stall have fixed rotor blades, hence dont have this feature. Wind turbines are also
classified on the basis of different types of towers i.e., lattice, steel tubular and concrete
tubular.
Bio-power: There are various technologies for harnessing bio-power, i.e., bagasse
cogeneration, non-bagasse cogeneration, biomass gasifier and urban & industrial wastes
power generation. The huge availability of wastes in the form of agricultural, agro-
industrial residues and plantations and urban & industrial wastes makes biomass power a
feasible and optimal option for power generation in India. As, India is rural land hence
possessed potential of more than 5000 million units of electricity generation every year.
The projects also help in generating employment opportunities for more than 10 million
people in the rural areas. This will help in stopping the migration of people from villages
to urban area and also help in reverse migration.
Small Hydro Power: the hydro power projects are categorised into small (upto 25 MW)
and large hydro power plants (above 25 MW). The small hydro projects have potential of
generating capacity of 20000 MW from rivers in Himalayan states and from irrigation
canals in other states. To generate hydro-electric power, there is a requirement of
maintaining reasonable head i.e., storing water on some height. When the water moves
from head to turbines, it possesses some kinetic energy (KE). The water strikes on the
blades of turbine and rotor starts moving so as the shaft of generator, which is connected
with the rotor of turbine. The KE of water gets converted into electrical energy.
Solar Power: India possessed vast solar energy potential. About 4-7 kWh per m2 per day
energy received on various locations in India. The solar radiations possess energy in the
form of light and heat. Hence both technical routes, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic,
can be effectively used to provide large volumes of solar energy in India. Off-grid
decentralized and low-temperature applications will be advantageous from a rural
electrification perspective and meeting other energy needs for power and heating and
cooling in both rural and urban areas. To meet the energy requirement in rural areas for
power, heating and cooling and drying etc, low temperature appliances are more
beneficial. Even, off-grid decentralized power generation through solar energy will be
 favourable for rural electrification. The abundant availability of solar energy makes it an
energy secure perspective.

Off-Grid Power
The off-grid power projects are also termed as the decentralized renewable projects,
which aims to provide the electricity supply to the remote areas of nation. It also covers the areas
where electrification is not possible in near future. The main sources of off-grid power are:
The generation of power through the combustion of locally available biomass in the
biomass gasifiers in heat and power projects. There is also a need to develop waste-to-
energy projects for industrial waste to meet the captive requirements.
The power can also be produced through biogas by anaerobic decomposition of the
biomass. This type of system also produces organic manure, which is replacement for the
chemical fertilizers used in agriculture.
The electricity requirement of remote villages in hilly area can be done by watermills or
micro hydro projects.
The electricity requirement for mechanical devices like grinding and milling can be
fulfilled by the small wind energy set-ups, mainly in coastal areas where grid connection
has not reached. Small hybrid systems combining wind with biomass can also be
developed in those areas.
As India lies in a sub-tropical region, hence a large amount of solar energy is available
which can be utilised for the electricity generation. Thus, there is a need to develop solar
PV roof-top systems in urban areas.

Some of the other renewable energy technologies used in rural areas as off-grid systems
are family-size biogas plants for cooking purposes, solar street lighting systems for both rural
and urban areas, solar lanterns and solar home lighting systems, which can be charged during
day time, solar water heating systems in institutions and also for household purposes, solar
cookers, standalone biomass power generators, wind pumps in coastal areas, micro-hydal plants
in hilly areas.
Government Electrification efforts
The Indian government has been making efforts for rural electrification since the 1960s,
but the issue has been more prominently addressed in the past few years as despite growth the
electricity generation capacity of the India, rural areas have not been able to draw benefits of this
development on large scale. In line with this goal, several major policies have been launched to
strengthen the electricity access in rural areas in the past few years, whose objectives, challenges,
success and failures are discussed below in detail.

According to the amended definition of electrified village as provided in Electricity Act,

2003, a village is said to be electrified when 10% of its houses and all public places are
connected to gird. This implies that if one out of ten houses is electrified, then the village is said
to be an electrified village. To attain rural electrification, the government of India initiated a
program in April 2005, Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidhyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), which
aims to provide 90% subsidy on capital for the development of infrastructure, which involves
distribution lines and transformers. The program results into achieving 98% rural electrification
as per definition, which involves only 10% of households. Consequently, the scheme failed in
ensuring electricity access for whole village. The electricity supply is erratic and irrational and
villagers get electricity only for six and minimum hours. Even, the voltage is also very poor and
fails to power lightening system in village.

As RGGVY fails, thus the government come up with new scheme named as Rural
Electrification Policy, launched in 2006, which aims for the complete electrification of Indian
villages and also aims to provide good quality and consistent power supply to the villages by
2009. The program, by 2012, also aims to provide 1 kWh of energy consumption to each
household. But, the target has not been achieved yet, only 55.3% of rural household has access to
electricity as per 2011 census. The following six states, which failed majorly in achieving
electrification, are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Assam. By 2014,
the objective of scheme is modified as 247 electricity supply to all till 2019. The scheme
emphasiss on the electricity generation through renewable energy resources. It also focuses on
grid expansion. The Ministry of Power also launched a scheme called Decentralized
Distribution Generation (DDG) under RGGVY in 2009 which initiated with the intention of
providing 1kWh energy to each household in a village where grid connection was not possible.
The scheme has only achieved 12% of the projects to be commissioned as sanctioned by the
ministry. Thus, the scheme fails in achieving its objectives.

In July 2015, the government of India initiated Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti
Yojana (DDUGJY), which absorbs the existing RGGVY. The scheme aims to provide a
separate distribution wire for agricultural consumption, so that the farmer receives a consistent
electricity supply. Rs 1,123 crore, released under the scheme, is used for grid expansion in past
two years.

The renewable energy is promoted, since the 1980s, for bridging the gap of rural
electrification. Renewable projects also create employment opportunities for local people, which
consequently boost the local economy. Such project has the ability to supply consistent
electricity because of large locally available resources and also makes the village independent
from the large grid. However, such projects are still limited to only those remote villages which
are not connected to the grid. Thus, for the proper utilisation of locally available resources,
MNRE launched Remote Village Electrification Program (RVEP) to cover 18,000 villages in
India. The program aims to expand the use of off-grid renewable technologies for facilitating
basic lighting sources in these villages by 2012. The scheme was discontinued in the 12th Five
Year Plan due to government shift.

To promote the solar energy in India, the government launched a scheme named as
Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mision (JNNSM), in 2010. The program aims to promote
off-grid distribution systems based on solar energy. It offers two subsidies on the high project
cost, which involves 30% capital subsidy and 50% interest subsidy. The scheme is successful in
exceeding its target of 200 MW. The program managed the installation of about 252 MW by
2013, but only 27.5% share of the installed capacity was allocated in the rural areas. Whereas,
more than 40% is installed in the government institutions and the rest of the capacity was
allocated to urban and semi-urban areas.
 The major drawbacks involved with all these schemes are:
they are mainly aim to provide only lighting services
the supply is erratic and only for few hours
they are mainly installed in institutions.
Thus, they were failed in both conceptualisation and implementation front. The schemes
were also not sufficient in providing electricity to the nation as whole.

Thus, MNRE drafted a new policy called National Policy for Renewable Energy-
based Micro and Mini-Grids, in June 2016. Through this, the government make its first step
towards transformation of electricity access and its supply in India. It scheme aims of installing
around 10,000 such projects, which have the minimum capacity of 500 MW till 2021. The
scheme aims to provide the support of the centre for the development of this sector by providing
assistant to all the technological options for the developers. States need to draft their own
policies on the guidelines provided by centre under the scheme on the basis of their regional
circumstances and local environmental conditions. The existing mini-grids of India only provide
lighting services that too for only few hours and at high costs to the remote locations, where
people has less options, whereas, this new policy proposed to provide better services at
subsidised rates. The concept of mini-grids in the policy emphasises on the role of diversified
customer base and thus differentiated tariffs for different kind of loads.