To make the rural electrification programme of the government more effective and sustainable, there is need for alternative supply models customised to meet the specific needs of each region, according to a study by the consultancy firm Ernst & Young.
The study was commissioned by the Forum of Indian Regulators -- a body which is open to all regulators but currently dominated by power regulators.
FOIR had asked E&Y to evaluate alternative models of reliable rural electrification with low transmission and commercial losses. E&Y has given four broad solutions for rural electrification, depending on the prevailing situation.
The first option is to supply power from the grid with local community participation in metering, billing and collection activities. "This is a good option for areas which are lying close to a grid connection," said an official of FOIR.
The second option is distributed generation for areas having low grid penetration. Here, the power is generated locally and simultaneously distributed to the end users, without ever entering the grid.
The third recommendation is to independent micro-grids with local generation where the objective would be to provide a village or a cluster of villages with electricity to create an independent self-sufficient generation mini-distribution network.
Such stand alone generation and distribution systems would be particularly viable in remote rural areas where providing grid access as well as its management is technically not feasible, or is expensive. Local resource availability (biomass, micro-hydro, etc.) is a pre-requisite for this option.
Providing household electrification solution through solar home systems is the option available for remote isolated villages that do not have an aggregated demand.
According to a Central Electricity Regulatory Commission official, the alternative models are required for making the rural electrification programme sustainable and commercially viable along with extending it to areas lacking grid connectivity or having partial connectivity.
Data from the Planning Commission show that while 80 per cent villages in the country have been electrified so far, only 43.5 per cent households have got electricity. Eight states have achieved 100 per cent village electrification.