In order to bring access to electricity to the unserved and the underserved rural enterprises, CLEAN Member Doorastha (a govt. recognized start-up formed with the idea to resolve problems that challenged the sustainability of the Solar Off-Grid Systems) deployed solar micro-grids in the two rural markets of Jaunpur district, Uttar Pradesh.
Tiwari Ji, a local shopkeeper, is one of their very first customers availing 24x7 electricity from past two years. He runs his tea & sweet shop using Doorastha’s iLUMY (Intelligent Laghu Urja Mapan Yantra) solution. iLUMY consists of a smart metering device, grid controller and cloud-based software technology platform. It was developed and prototyped for measurement and monitoring of solar micro/mini-grids in real-time to bring efficiency in operation & management. Earlier such small businesses received less than eight hours of intermittent energy and experienced poor quality with high-power outages, especially during evenings. They were solely dependent on polluting diesel generators for electricity supply in the evenings. This forced them to redirect 15-20% of their income towards alternatives sources such as diesel generators to meet their energy demands. These alternative sources of energy were not only expensive but also caused air pollution.
Intermittent electricity supply, in general, is a deterrent to the growth of micro-enterprises. “With 24x7 access to electricity from solar micro-grid, I have now extended my work hours and this has resulted in an increased income which I now spend on my children’s education”. says a relieved Tiwari Ji. His extended work hours has increased his productivity and correspondingly the income by almost 25-30% with an improved customer retention. He now saves atleast 15% on kerosene, diesel, and health associated expenses. In addition, the fan given by Doorastha reduces his drudgery as earlier he used a hand fan and blowpipe to keep the chulha burning.
Doorastha’s affordable PAYG financing payment model enables Tiwari Ji to pay according to his cash flow without making the process burdensome for him. The smart meter deployed at the consumer end helps him to track the energy consumption.
With reliable electricity from solar micro-grid, he now plans to buy a small refrigerator which he can use to store milk products and thereby expand his tea and sweet shop business. “Doorastha is committed to enabling systems where rural micro enterprises are empowered through distributed clean energy assets run efficiently and in a sustainable manner, so as to provide a good RoI for the investors.” says Shyamal Datta, Co-founder and Director of Doorastha.
The organization is steadily moving towards enabling access to clean energy-based productive loads which would lead to further livelihood generation through cluster identification for services-based manufacturing clusters.