Lighting the Lives of the Impoverished in India’s Rural and Tribal Drylands

Abstract

About two billion people in developing countries around the world lack electricity (Goldemberg and Johansson, 2004). Inadequate lighting has a direct negative impact on the health, ecology, and safety of rural households who are forced to light their homes with kerosene lamps, cow dung cakes, firewood from forests, and crop residues. Kerosene lamps are not only expensive but also inefficient, unhealthy, and dangerous. Furthermore, they consume significant amounts of limited global petroleum supplies and are consequently a major source of greenhouse gases. It has been estimated that kerosene lanterns in developing nations alone annually burn 470 million barrels of oil and release roughly 400 billion pounds of CO2 equivalent gases into the atmosphere (Mills, 2005). Solar photovoltaic lanterns appear to offer a practical and clean energy alternative. In India—the second most populated country in the world with over one billion inhabitants—roughly 70% of rural areas lack electricity and about 40% of industries rely on their own generators due to unstable power supplies. In addition, over 60% of rural households use only kerosene lamps for lighting which produce a light intensity of only 60–70 lm compared to a 100 W electric bulb which can produce 1,300 lm (Rajvanshi, 2007). Energy efficiency is especially critical to nations such as India which have large and growing populations. The International Energy Agency has reported that India’s demand for energy will double by 2020 (IEA, 2007). India now generates 129,000 MW of power annually, but even current demand is 200,000 MW— a shortfall of 40%. However, India receives solar energy equivalent to over 5,000 kWh annually, which is far more than the total energy consumption of the country (Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources, 1998). The annual average of sunny days ranges from 250 to 300. The daily average solar energy intake varies from 4 to 7 kWh/m depending on location but only a fraction of the aggregate potential in solar energy is currently being utilized. Solar photovoltaic lanterns offer an excellent opportunity to use this energy to provide better domestic lighting for rural homes that lack power grids or suffer from frequent electricity shortages. These lanterns have the potential to replace the candles, kerosene lamps and hurricane lanterns commonly used by villagers. Furthermore, they can be used outdoors in agricultural fields during irrigation and harvesting, for fishing at night, and many other farm-related activities. We here present quantitative data on the benefits of solar photovoltaic lanterns for the livelihoods of village communities and sustainable use of the environment in the semiarid regions of Western India.