Electricity campaign for world's poorest
Updated
An Indian energy research institute has launched a campaign to provide lighting to over a billion people who don't have access to basic electricity.
Presenter: Girish Sawlani
Speakers: Dr RK Pachauri, chairman of the Energy Research and Resources Institute and head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
SAWLANI: Some 1.6 billion people from some of the world's poorest countries have no access to electricity, with nearly 25 per cent living in India's cities. For some 400 and so million people, they always have had to depend on kerosene for lighting purposes, resulting in almost six million tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted to the atmosphere each year. But a New Delhi-based energy institute may have found a permanent solution.
The Energy Research and Resources Institute has just launched a "Light 1 Billion Lives" campaign and involves the sale and distribution of low cost solar powered lanterns to rural communities across India.
The Institute is chaired by Dr RK Pachauri, who's also the head of the Nobel Prize-winning UN intergovernmental panel on climate change. He believes it's a fundamental right for everyone to have access to basic electricity.
PACHAURI: Firstly, there is the overall macro-situation which is very distressing. There are 1.6 billion people in this world who don't have access to electricity or modern forms of energy and that clearly is something that we should all as human beings be ashamed of, because that's one quarter of humanity.
I was very encouraged with the work that we did in the few rural areas when we first launched something called "Lighting a Million Lives", but a million is nothing. It's a drop in the ocean. So I said we have to make this a global effort and I'm sure by 2015 we should be able to reach a billion people.
SAWLANI: Now the production of these solar lanterns, how is it going to be funded?
PACHAURI: Well, we are getting support from corporate donors, philanthropists, foundations, all kinds of sources. Because if you look at the global challenge of providing this form of lighting to a billion people, it's going to cost something like 20 billion dollars and that's really not a lot of money, and with product improvement and technology, evolution, I'm sure the costs will come down.
And we also getting communities to pay for it. So in different places, we have to adopt different models.
SAWLANI: But each lamp at the moment costs around 3,600 rupiahs. How will people in the villages possibly be able to afford them?
PACHAURI: Well, it's actually a case of arranging the financing because what we are doing, for instance, in some villages ... in the delta region of Gangi River, is to provide these lamps and we train a woman who charges them during the daytime and rents them out in the evening at anywhere from three to five rupees an evening. So you can generate this as a market model and a business and people are willing to pay for the light that they get, because three or five rupees a day is close to 10 US cents. It's generally not a lot of money which people are quite wiling to provide if they get lighting at least, such a difference to their lives.
SAWLANI: And you believe this campaign will significantly reduce carbon emissions?
PACHAURI: Oh absolutely, because otherwise you use kerosene, you use candles, you use very inefficient ways of lighting if at all you have access to any of them. In some cases, there is no lighting at all. But this is clearly far better than generating power in a centralised station and supplying electricity with all the losses in transmissions. From the carbon emissions point of view, this is an absolute winner.
SAWLANI: Besides lowering carbon emissions, what are the other benefits for people to use these solar lanterns?
PACHAURI: Well, it's superior lighting to start with. I mean it's far better than a kerosene lamp and it's a sustainable form of energy. You don't have to go out and buy kerosene or candles. The sun gives you that energy on a regular basis and it's also good for the health, because otherwise you get emissions from these lamps which go into your eyes, go into your lungs, and that's certainly not desirable, because people have to sit very close to those lights to do anything at all, even reading a book for that matter.
SAWLANI: What are some of the challenges in getting this campaign up and going in full swing?
PACHAURI: The big challenges are of course arranging the financing, and secondly to be able to find the right partners, because you need to carry out some due diligence on the capability of those who are actually going to implement this on the ground. And we have to be very careful, we have to make sure that people do it right, otherwise like anything with good intentions, you can get a bad name if it is not implemented properly.
SAWLANI: I understand that this campaign may also be introduced to countries in South East Asia, like Indonesia or in Cambodia?
PACHAURI: Absolutely, we like to spread it all over, because this is a global problem and we are also targeting Africa. There are opportunities over there and a huge challenge we feel we must meet. So we are certainly thinking of all these countries which have people that don't have access to electricity, even today.
