Government to launch new scheme for livelihood applications of distributed renewable energy: Union minister RK Singh – EQ Mag

• Clean tech can impact 37 million livelihoods in India’s agri & textile sectors, present INR 4 lakh crore opportunity

• 70% of women and farmers using clean technology reported an income increase

• Union Minister R. K. Singh also launched ‘Suraj ka Gola’, India’s solar energy anthem

New Delhi : “Our government is coming out with a new scheme for distributed applications of renewable energy (RE). There is already a lot of work happening on the ground and our scheme could benefit lakhs of families across the country. We will, however, need large scale-manufacturing and standardising of distributed applications of RE to lower prices and expand the sector. We have seen the potential of grid-scale solar power, India will scale up distributed applications of renewable energy for livelihoods. Just like we have a large programme on rooftop solar and solar irrigation, we will create a large programme for DRE livelihoods,” said Shri R. K. Singh, Union Minister for Power, and New & Renewable Energy, at the ‘National Summit on Powering Sustainable Livelihoods’ organised today by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and Villgro Innovations Foundation’s Powering Livelihoods initiative.

“The government plans to make DRE livelihood equipment affordable. One aspect of this will be tying up with banks. If a family wants to own a solar dryer, they should be able to get financing from the banks – we will work towards it. Manufacturers and users of DRE for livelihoods are pioneers and now the government will scale it up to the next level,” he added.

Union minister R. K. Singh released two new reports by CEEW and Villgro, which show that clean technologies have the potential to impact 37 million livelihoods in India’s agriculture and textile sectors and translate into a market opportunity worth almost INR 4 lakh crore (about USD 50 billion). Further, 70 per cent of women and farmers using clean technology reported an income increase, typically by 35 per cent. They use clean-energy powered products such as solar-powered silk reeling machines, multi-food processors, micro solar pumps, solar vertical fodder grow units, among others, to enhance and diversify their income.

Shri R. K. Singh also launched ‘Suraj ka Gola’ — a solar anthem produced by CEEW and Villgro. Created in collaboration with the band Maati Baani and Ashish Kulkarni of Indian Idol fame, the song celebrates how solar energy is transforming lives and livelihoods in rural India.

In India, solar-powered pumps—higher capacity and micro-pumps—have the maximum deployment potential, followed by solar-powered vertical fodder growing units and solar dryers. Collectively, these four technologies alone can impact around 27 million livelihoods. Unsurprisingly, solar pumps are the most mature among these technologies due to the government programmes supporting them since 2015.

Abhishek Jain, Fellow and Director – Powering Livelihoods, CEEW, said, “India is among the global leaders in clean energy transition. With a programme like Powering Livelihoods, we are taking this clean energy transition to the masses and contributing to their incomes and livelihoods. By deploying more than 11,000 such technologies across India since the pandemic, we have shown the impact of clean-energy-powered livelihood technologies on enhancing and diversifying people’s incomes. In a country where a million youth reaches the working-age population every month, we need to aggressively support jobs and livelihoods.”

The reports found that clean-tech-powered technologies have the greatest impact opportunity in Uttar Pradesh, followed by West Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka. But the relative market for each livelihood technology varies across states. For example, micro solar pumps have the highest market in West Bengal, whereas solar dryers have the highest market in Maharashtra.

Further, the CEEW-Villgro analysis highlighted that women form the majority of these clean tech users currently. Out of the 767 users surveyed across 19 states, 74 per cent of respondents were women. The clean technologies deployed brought out several social impacts as well.

Ananth Aravamundan, Sector Lead – Climate Action, Villgro, said, “Through Powering Livelihoods, we have supported social entrepreneurs who are trying to create lakhs of livelihoods in rural India by harnessing renewable energy, using scalable and replicable business models. Over a 15-year investment horizon, the clean tech product variants become more attractive than their grid alternatives. We hope that the evidence generated by this programme will motivate policymakers, financiers and manufacturers to extend support to mainstream such livelihood products.”

However, to unlock the full potential of clean tech in rural India, on-ground challenges will need to be solved too. The use of these technologies is often constrained by raw material unavailability, limited earnings due to poor market linkages, and a lack of service support in rural areas. A concerted effort is required by stakeholders to commercialise these technologies through enhanced capital support to manufacturers and affordable credit to end-users.

About Powering Livelihoods

Powering Livelihoods, a CEEW-Villgro initiative, aims to boost India’s rural economy by scaling up the penetration of clean energy-powered appliances for livelihoods. Over three years, the initiative will support six enterprises to undertake large-scale commercial deployment of their solutions and use the generated evidence to catalyse the sector. The initiative also provides explicit financial and technical support to enhance gender-inclusion in the clean energy for livelihoods ecosystem.

About CEEW

The Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) is one of Asia’s leading not-for-profit policy research institutions. The Council uses data, integrated analysis, and strategic outreach to explain – and change – the use, reuse, and misuse of resources. It prides itself on the independence of its high-quality research, develops partnerships with public and private institutions, and engages with wider public. In 2021, CEEW once again featured extensively across ten categories in the 2020 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report. The Council has also been consistently ranked among the world’s top climate change think tanks.

About Villgro

Villgro is India’s foremost and one of the world’s largest social enterprise incubators. Established in 2001, Villgro’s mission is to make innovative, impactful businesses succeed in Health, Agribusiness, and Climate Action. Since 2001, Villgro has supported 340 social enterprises that have raised over INR 4.28 billion in investments, created 5,646 jobs, and impacted over 20.8 million lives. Villgro was awarded the Top Incubator Award by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (GoI) in 2020 and the DivHERsity awards in 2022.