NGO helps bring energy–saving light to rural India

Mumbai – In India, where over some 100,000 villages do not have access to electricity, a Mumbai–based NGO has begun focusing on bringing light to the rural people.

Grameen Surya Bijli Foundation (GSBF) is installing low–cost solar–powered energy–saving lamps that use LEDs (light emitting diodes) in villages where, with sunset, life used to come to a standstill.

LED lamps, that are four times more efficient than normal incandescent bulbs, like cell–phones, are another example of a technology whose low cost could allow the rural poor to leapfrog into the 21st century.

About 80 million people in India are still used to using kerosene as the primary lighting media. The fuel is dangerous, poisonous and – despite being heavily subsidized – consumes nearly 4 percent of a typical rural Indian household's budget.

On the other hand, LED lamps, or more specifically white LEDS, are believed to produce nearly 200 times more useful light than a kerosene lamp and almost 50 times the amount of useful light of a conventional bulb.

"This technology can light an entire rural village with less energy than that used by a single conventional 100 watt light bulb," said Dave Irvine–Halliday, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Calgary, Canada and the founder of Light Up the World Foundation (LUTW).

Founded in 1997, LUTW has used LED technology to bring light to nearly 10,000 homes in remote and disadvantaged corners of some 27 countries including India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, and the Philippines.

The revolutionary technology, however, is not without its critics. “This isn't a magic solution to the world's energy problems," emphasized Ashok Jhunjhunwala, head of the electrical engineering department at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, explaining that there is a need for a clean energy source, not just for lighting but for other domestic purposes, like cooking, as well.

Though the Indian government has launched an ambitious project to bring electricity to 112,000 rural villages in the next decade, however, the remote locations of the village will make achieving this goal difficult.

Besides, according to A.K. Lakhina, the chairman of India's Rural Electrification Corporation, the high capital cost incurred in importing the LED lamps in bulks are deterring the Indian government from implementing the idea though it has recognized the potential of LED lighting powered by solar technology. "If only LEDs weren't imported but manufactured locally," he said wistfully, adding, "and in bulk."

Presently, GSBF imports LED lamps from China and it costs the NGO about USD $ 55 each to install it in each home. Though, the lamps cost nearly half as much as other solar lighting systems, Jasjeet Singh Chaddha, the founder of the NGO, is looking to cut the price further by setting up an LED manufacturing unit and a solar panel manufacturing unit in India.

If manufactured locally, the cost of his LED lamp could plummet to USD $ 22, as they will not be incurring heavy import duties. "But we need close to USD $ 5 million for this," he said, adding, "And investments are difficult to come by."

Though, Mr. Chaddha has requested the government several times to exempt the lamps from such duties, yet, he has not met with any success. Till now, he has poured his own money into the project, providing the initial installations free of charge.

However, as he looks to make the project self–sustainable, he recognizes that it is only urban markets – which have also shown an avid interest in LED lighting – that can pay. The rural markets in India cannot afford it, he said, until the prices are brought down.

Till then, in a few villages like Khadakwadi in Maharashtra, the LED lamps will continue to give light to the villagers and brighten up their lives when darkness falls.