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Providing Power to
the People Hari Sharan, Co-Chair, DesiPower D esiPower has been working on a program for providing electricity and energy services in villages jointly with local partners who establish local small scale industries, businesses and agro-forestry for value addition and job creation. In order to ensure that both the enterprises become self-reliant and profitable within a reasonable time, the "Business Plans" of the Independent Rural Power Producer (IRPP) and the village organisation (which may be the village Panchayat, a company, a co-operative, or a NGO) are evolved jointly and simultaneously. For commercial success, the power plant has to sell as much electricity as it can generate and the villagers have to produce and sell their products profitably. The IRPP ensures the reliable and affordable supply of electricity and energy services based on locally available renewable energy resources such as agricultural residues and other biomass. The local partner organisation, on its part, ensures the supply of the biomass and the purchase of adequate amounts of electricity at agreed prices. A women’s group is encouraged and supported to take charge of the energy service activities such as cooking and lighting for households.A mutually beneficial partnership is thus created under which reliable power supply and energy services ensure local job creation and income generation, while the assured off-take of power and energy services ensures a profitable operation of the IRPPs. Cluster Centres The ultimate target is to install IRPPs in neighbouring villages with a total capacity of about 1 MW. The IRPPs and the village industries pay a small extension service fee to the Cluster Centre and, once all the villages are operational, make it self-supporting. DesiPower has been working on the concept of a "Cluster Centre" which is one of the cornerstones of its decentralised rural development strategy for supporting the managerial and technical sustainability of this programme. The Cluster Centre is active right from the start by working closely with the villagers to promote the local activities.
Once the site is selected, DesiPower develops and builds the IRPP package on the basis of the local conditions and helps the villagers develop the local organisation and micro industries. Subsequently the Cluster Centre takes the responsibility to provide a comprehensive set of "Extension Services" which include technical and managerial training, performance audit of the plants on a continuous basis and refresher courses. Field Experience DesiPower has either built or is building 11 biomass gasification based power stations as IRPPs for villages and plantations, and as captive power plants for industries and technical universities. The experience of the technical and financial performance of the gasification based power plants, the problems of packaging IRPPs and the even more complex problems of packaging IRPPs with local enterprises have been analysed and evaluated to formulate Empower Partnership Projects. The list of Biomass Gasification Plants is illustrated. Financial, Social and Ecological Performance EmPower Partnership Projects have now been implemented in three villages. The results in one of the villages where he project is most advanced clearly show that the combination of energy supply and value addition / employment generation within one integrated program brings the expected financial, social and ecological results. A two year development and consolidation program is underway with support from the Shell Foundation to quantify these results and make them available for large scale replication of EmPower Partnership model in many more villages. Benefits of DesiPower Local benefits
National and global benefits
A Typical "Triple Bottom Line" Performance of an EmPower Partnership Project (with a 50 kWe biomass gasification power plant)
Future Plans The experience of the first phase is being used to define and formulate the next phase of implementation of DesiPower’s rural "EmPower Partnership©" Programme. A project to fine tune the business plan is underway in three cluster centres under a grant from Shell Foundation, London. The progress of new investments and training is being continuously monitored and evaluated in the three villages for defining the conditions for a large scale replication of the programme. Discussions on the financing of new projects in other villages in these clusters and in new locations are also underway. In this context, the recent decision of the Government of India to electrify 18000 remote villages with renewable energy provides an ideal opportunity for integrating the MNES program with those of other ministries dealing with rural development and rural jobs under an EmPower Partnership model.
DESI Power List of Biomass Gasification Based Power Plants Commissioned / Under-Commissioning in November 2002
DesiPower expects that very soon there will a large enough number of villages with successful EmPower Partnership© Programmes to make these rather unique projects attractive for private and institutional investors. A part of the investments can also be raised through the integration of these projects in the CDM and Joint Implementation mechanisms of the Climate Change Convention. A beginning has been made through the selling of voluntary CO2 emission certificates from these projects. It is expected that the equity contribution of the local partner can be raised by the advance selling of the savings of CO2 emissions for a number of years. qFor detailed information on Empower Projects, write to: |
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