News

UP becomes lab for green energy firms looking to tap rural market

Uttar Pradesh, home to about 16% of India’s 1.2 billion population, many of whom have poor or no access to power, is emerging as the preferred testing ground for non-profits and companies trying out new business models as they seek to tap rising demand for electricity in rural India.Across the state, these organizations are testing the viability of supplying electricity from mini-grids and solar-powered lighting systems specially designed for villages and small enterprises.

The first customers are telcos whose telecom towers in remote parts of the country have, until now, been powered by diesel generators; and shops, even individual households, in villages that were hitherto illuminated by kerosene lanterns.According to Zia Khan, vice-president, initiatives and strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation, which has committed $75 million of debt financing and early investment capital to energy services companies in India, the market for mini-grids in Uttar Pradesh is promising.

“More consumers are signing up, no one has dropped out of the mini-grid ecosystem and more energy service companies are coming up,” said Khan.The foundation provides finance for setting up micro-grids, helps these utilities in finding anchor customers (mostly telcos), and in marketing power to households and small commercial establishments.