Sierra Club, Carbon War Room, Greenpeace India, Eight 19, Greenlight Planet

After decades of attempts to electrify rural populations worldwide the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a series of energy access papers has come to the conclusion that business as usual ¡V defined as a reliance on centralized grid extensions can not solve the problem. The IEA found that by 2030 there will still be 1 billion people without electricity using current approaches, while billions more considered "electrified" will receive only a few hours of electricity per day.



We argue that the only way to reverse the present situation and reach the 1 billion people without electricity is to abandon the "grid fallacy" - that building out the grid is the only way to achieve universal electrification and the "aid trap" - that rural electrification requires heavy end user subsidies typically associated with costly grid extensions.

After decades of attempts to electrify rural populations worldwide the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a series of energy access papers has come to the conclusion that business as usual defined as a reliance on centralized grid extensions cannot solve the problem. The IEA found that by 2030 there will still be 1 billion people without electricity using current approaches, while billions more considered "electrified" will receive only a few hours of electricity per day.

The result of this failure is staggering. The world's poor pay about 20% of the global lighting bill but they receive only 0.1% of the lighting services produced. Put another way the poor pay 10,000 times what we pay and they get poor light and poor health in return.

We argue that the only way to reverse the present situation and reach the 1 billion people without electricity is to abandon the "grid fallacy" - that building out the grid is the only way to achieve universal electrification and the "aid trap" - that rural electrification requires heavy end user subsidies typically associated with costly grid extensions.

Put simply, large scale centralized sources of energy are prohibitively expensive and simply won't reach the rural poor. On the other hand decentralized clean energy solutions are already cost effectively meeting rural energy needs - without any public subsidies or supportive policies. In order to truly deliver sustainable energy for all the campaign must catalyze and scale up existing off grid clean energy markets by creating supply chains, finance and supportive policy environments for off-grid entrepreneurs and companies.

For more information go to:

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/india/