Bringing Light to India's Rural Areas

Alan Short

Sept 3 2010

11:40 am

Energy is being brought to India’s rural areas. These areas either have no electricity at all or have electricity with many interruptions. Selco, a solar powered company based in Bangalore, has been working with these areas to provide reliable electricity. These solar powered systems cost between 8,500 to 11,000 rupees, the equivalent of $180 to $235. Since most of their customers earn an average of 3,500 to 4,000 rupees a month, Selco works with local banks to provide financing to make these systems more affordable. Alternative energy only accounts for about 8 percent of India’s power generation. “India’s energy consumption is expected to double between 2005 and 2030.” India has plans “to increase solar energy capacity to 1,000 megawatts by 2013 and 20,000 megawatts by 2022,” although there current grid capacity is only 15 megawatts. The owner of Selco is not interested in expanding his business into the global market. He just wants to help the poor of India. By providing these people with electricity the lower-income population could supplement their income by doing things in their home or on their farm to make money. Mr. Hande, the owner of Selco, states, “We want to go deeper into the strata. Geographical expansion is low-hanging fruit. Let someone else do it.”

I think that we take having electricity everyday for granted. These people were happy to have enough light to read a book at night or to do homework. Also, the United States definitely has to invest more in alternative energy because the cost of petroleum along with hunger for more is breaking our country everyday in more than one way. I could also see that the owner of Selco is not in the business for making money but to better his community.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/business/energy-environment/03iht-rbogsolar.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&src=busln