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Empowering Rural India with Decentralized Energy Systems
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Mr. Anand Abhishek*
Email: anand12@ceeri.res.in
EIndia is a country of values, cultures, festivals, villages and different economic conditions. On an average day, nearly 25
million people travel via Indian railways, and the rush in trains escalates drastically during festive times. Interestingly, one can listen to all sorts of discussion while travelling on a bus or train in India, spanning from politics to sports to the cinema and what not? In August 2016, I was travelling to my sister’s place Muzaffarpur, Bihar, by a local bus on the occasion of Rakshabandhan, one of the unique festivals celebrating the pious bonding between a brother and a sister. As expected, a plethora of topics were in discussion among co-passengers, and these confusing words of an old gentleman just sitting behind me on the bus startled me.
‘Village is electrified, sahib!, without electricity.’
I turned back and started enquiring about the actual meaning of his statement. We discussed the problems of his village and got to know that indeed the village was electrified, but most of the time there was no electricity. Many times, the distribution transformer remained defective for several months, which affected the local business and livelihood of villagers. Roads were mostly dark at night with non-operational street lights or non-availability of electricity. This not only hampers the day- to-day life but also invites all sorts of criminal activities and threats to women’s safety. Diesel pumps were the only solution for irrigation because of erratic electricity supply. Few affluent people in the village had inverters and solar panels, but most of the village was still in
* Mr. Anand Abhishek, Ph.D. Scholar from Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, CSIR- Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute, Pilani, is pursuing his research on “Renewable Energy Based DC Microgrid”. His popular science story entitled “Empowering Rural India with Decentralized Energy Systems” has been selected for AWSAR Award.