Book excerpt | How SELCO helped to dispel 3 myths around solar energy use by rural communities

"SELCO’s primary stakeholders range from the schoolchild studying at home...to the women’s self-help group (SHG) running a flour-processing mill." (Representational image by John Hult via Unsplash)

Twenty-six-years ago, Arvind Rai, a school teacher in south India, took a leap of faith and installed a solar home lighting system, so that his children and his neighbours’ children could study in the evenings under brighter lights. Today, most of those children, if not all, have solar power in their homes as their source of reliable and quality energy supply.

In 1995, access to electricity was a luxury for most rural communities in India. Less than 40 per cent of rural India was electrified. There was a significant challenge in providing energy for basic lighting, water heating and irrigation for households and villages not connected to the grid, perhaps not even close to a grid. Even when they were connected to the grid, electricity supply would be often unreliable and infrequent. As we are well aware today, energy is a critical catalyst for local development—by improving household wellbeing and convenience, by powering healthcare appliances to deliver much-needed last-mile health services, by mechanizing livelihoods, and improving productivity and income-generation opportunities. The absence of energy stalls the process of development.

At the time, households with no reliable electricity supply were forced to depend on a mix of kerosene and candles for basic lighting, and on diesel generators, if they could afford them, to run their larger appliances. Communities were spending a significant amount of their disposable income on energy sources that were unreliable and provided poor-quality electricity.

It was in this context that Solar Electric Light Company (SELCO) was conceived, with the aim of enabling access to energy as a means to stimulate local development. Providing reliable and quality electricity in a country with a mix of rural agrarian communities, remote hamlets, riverine islands and forest-dwellers is a task that requires decentralization. Decentralized solar energy, produced where it is consumed, as opposed to being transmitted from hundreds of kilometres away, could provide an energy source for households when they needed it. However, this was a time when a solar panel—or ‘solar plate’ as it was colloquially referred to—was a novelty in rural Karnataka, viewed with a mix of curiosity and skepticism. Could this really power a light or a water pump? Would people be willing to pay for it? Who would repair it if something went wrong?

SELCO sought to answer these questions and dispelled three myths in the process. The first two were linked to energy provision itself: that the poor cannot afford decentralized solar energy systems and that it would not be possible to maintain and service these systems in rural communities. The third myth was that a social enterprise could not do this while making profits and being sustainable. Dispelling these three myths has been the guiding principle behind the design of SELCO’s core efforts: to enable doorstep implementation and servicing of decentralized solar systems; to facilitate doorstep financing for end-user households, entrepreneurs and farmers; and to do so in a manner that is sustainable. The design and creation of a sustainable social enterprise has been as significant to the SELCO story as was its goal of providing energy to the last mile.

Since then, the organization has grown to identify and understand the
varied energy needs of last-mile communities—from government agencies,
schools and healthcare facilities to livelihood value chains across agriculture, animal husbandry, textiles, crafts and small business. SELCO’s primary stakeholders range from the schoolchild studying at home to the home-based worker running a tailoring unit or small shop; from the individual street vendor to the women’s self-help group (SHG) running a flour-processing mill and the local farmer producer organization (FPO) operating a cold storage facility to reduce wastage of their produce and increase their bargaining power.

Individuals and communities have seen the benefit of holistically designed sustainable energy solutions. Here sustainable energy includes three interlinked infrastructure components:

1. Energy-efficient appliances, such as efficient grinding and milling
technologies for spices and flour, motors for sewing machines, efficient
baby warmers, and vaccine refrigerators for healthcare;

2. Decentralized solar energy systems on rooftops powered by batteries;

3. Efficient, green built environments with natural lighting, ventilation, and thermal comfort, built with local, eco-friendly building material that increase the wellbeing of end-users and reduce their energy needs and costs.

These are deployed in combination with affordable credit, appropriate
delivery models, and relevant skills or capacity building to help end-users
and communities access, utilize, own and maintain these solutions in the
long run. They have improved the quality of life of their users, reducing their drudgery, and raising their productivity and their ability to earn a living. At the very basic level, it has enabled access to a reliable, modern energy source, something that all of us often take for granted.

Application to the Current Context and Today’s Crises

Across the world, poor people have been repeatedly thrown into crisis management mode—dealing with one disaster after another. Be it the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic or climate-related emergencies such as droughts or floods, the poor are the worst affected. Their needs differ across
geographies, and social and cultural contexts. For example, a Manipuri weaver needs modernization of loom technology to reduce her drudgery, while a marginal farmer in drought-prone north Karnataka needs access to on-farm appliances to help cultivate crops and better cold storage facilities to preserve the produce. Their needs and their inability to meet these, stem from the income poverty, climate risks and social deprivation they face.