Integrated Energy Centres

What are Integrated Energy Centres?

Integrated Energy Centres are solar powered community centre’s that can host a range of basic services and activities lacking in an un-der-served community. The centre aims at positively impacting quality of life and livelihoods by addressing fundamental energy needs and services relying on energy.

Energy centres are essentially solar powered independent service cen-tres for rural/urban/peri-urban spaces where a combination of energy services (such as lighting, mobile charging, charged batteries, and oth-ers) can be provided on a daily/monthly rental basis.

Integrated energy centres (IEC) are energy centres that are co-located with any community space like a library, education centre, health centre etc.; or vice versa i.e. education, health, finance services can be introduced in the energy providing unit so that these centres will become a hub for the under-privileged to access services that are either difficult to obtain or unreliable. Additionally, every IEC promotes the use of alternate energies, educating us-ers with possible methods and technologies that can be implemented for their need, and connects users to the provider keeping the user interests at highest priority.

The services, activities and structure of an IEC are generally designed de-pending on the need in a particular community. Each IEC is custom designed to best suit local environments and situations such that every aspect of it can be sustainable. Income generated by the IEC through the various services is supposed to recover all costs including running, maintenance and capital costs of the centres. The centres are typically run by partners, operators, groups or entrepreneurs from the community itself.

Operator Model

Under the operator run model, the solar charge battery system is rented out to a community by SELCO Foundation through a chosen operator from the community. Operators provide similar services as entrepreneurs in exchange for a monthly wage. Operators in charge of charging the batteries, distributing these to the renters in the community, collecting the rent and liaising with the foundation in case of any technical difficulty.

Entrepreneur Model

The entrepreneur-model seeks out an existing entrepreneur from the com-munity. Under this model, the entrepreneur takes out a loan and purchases a solar powered battery charging system to then rent out individual services to households in the community. The entrepreneur’s income is the margin he keeps of total rent s/he collects per month minus the equated monthly instal-ments (EMI) s/he pays back to the bank/financing entity.

Energy centre entrepreneurs are heavily supported by SELCO Foundation and often need financial support in terms of margin money/interest subsidy.

Partner Model

Under the partner run model, the solar charge battery system is rented out to a community by a local NGO through a chosen operator from the community. It runs in a manner similar to the Operator model. Partner run models are often inbuilt within an existing or a new space (in a classroom, health clinic etc.), which also has the partner service running with the basic energy access services.

Community Model

Under a community-owned model, the IEC is purchased by the community as a whole- through joint savings- and is managed by operators selected by the community. Often, these selected operators alternate amongst each oth-er to coordinate with the SELCO Foundation team. Just like any other IEC, the community-owned centre distributes solar-charged batteries in the evening to its customers.

Dharmasthala (2011)

This temple town of South Karnataka has over 5000 visitors every-day and during festivals, this goes up to 10000 to 15000 visitors. The town is home to many residents and hawkers who run businesses around the temple. It faces power cuts at least two to three times a week which affects area around the temple. There are multiple services that people in Dharmasthala have access to. The town is well served and well electrified in general.

The concept of Integrated Energy Centres (IEC) itself was born out of the H1- a centralized solar charging unit donated by Halloran Philanthro-pies and stationed in the temple town of Dharmasthala in Southern Kar-nataka. The centre began in Feb 2011 with the aim of being a demon-stration and awareness centre in the town, so that visitors from various villages will experience services and solar through the centre. Initially the centre catered to lanterns on rent, clean drinking water and mo-bile charging facilities for the floating population. Soon the need for such services and more became very apparent - like community television, solar fridge, hawker lights on rent, fan, home light demo etc. In November 2014, a solar powered refrigeration system (Chotu Cool) was installed in the IEC.

The rent coming in through the services ensures that the centre is finan-cially sustained. Since this is for a floating population and is primarily for awareness and demonstration, the season and festivals also cause an increase and decrease in the income from the services.

Case Study 1

Energy Access for Temple Visitors

5000+ households

benefitting per year

Case Study 2

Urban Slum Communities

issues that the slum dwellers battle with on a daily basis. Even though the neighbouring villages and towns do have access to some electricity, the Udupi slum remains un-elec-trified. Access to basic necessities like ker-osene, firewood and water is difficult which created a massive dent on their minimal sav-ings.

An average family consists of 5 to 10 mem-bers. Each family has an income of 8000 to 15000 rupees per month. They spend 250 rupees (6-7 litres of the black market) on kerosene and a minimum of 50 rupees to

charge their phones per month. Although using kerosene as lighting is the only affordable source of energy, many times even the availability of kerosene becomes limited, and people are forced to spend time in complete darkness as opposed to the dim, unsafe, unhealthy kerosene lamps.

Why an IEC?...

Thus, access to lighting systems is a very felt need in these slum communi-ties. Due to the uncertainty of livelihoods, and low savings, the capacity of the households to purchase an individual solar-powered home lighting system was low. Further, because of the land owner issues and bank requirements, getting Udupi slum dwellers included in the financial system seemed weak and unlikely. Thus, an energy centre was seen a good entry point for the community not only to access basic energy requirements through a decentralized charging station but to have a point that becomes a community hub to start developments on many other fronts.

An entrepreneur, Shankar, was identified in the community. He runs a mobile repair shop in the vicinity. Solar panels and the charging station were installed at Shankar’s house. A DC soldering gun was also provided for the entre-preneur as an added service at the centre. The centre also has a central mobile charging station that the entrepreneur runs (for the homes that have still not availed of the battery pack service). Each user gives in a refundable deposit to the entrepreneur that allows them to avail of the rental services at the centre. User monthly rental of Rs. 200 for each battery pack which consists of the light and the mobile charger. Rent coming in from the centre takes care of running costs and recovery of the capital costs.

Entrepreneur added income = 2750 (minimum) (while he is paying the EMI) + the extra income he can make on his soldering business.

The vast difference in quality of light and life after sunset is extremely evi-dent here, especially because of the stark difference between every second house in the row using the battery pack. There is not only increased produc-tivity levels in the homes but also gives a safer feeling to the users and the community. These households are now spending the same amount or much lesser on a cleaner, brighter and much more reliable source of energy.

Rs. 250 per month on

Kerosene;

Rs. 50 per month for

mobile charging

Udupi (2012)

The Udupi slum, located in the outskirts of Udupi is a large settlement of over 1000 households spread across 0.5 km. This is a privately owned land where the community stays paying rent to the owner for over 20 years. Most men and women are daily wage labourers. The settlement is identified by its close proximity to a large garbage dump yard that caters to neighbouring towns.

Due to the location and legalities surrounding this community there are many

Case Study 3

Working with Partners Kanbargi, Belgaum (2013)

Partner: Mahesh Foundation

Kanbargi slum is a settlement on a large patch of government land in Kanbargi area, Belgaum. A settlement of about 200 households (population = 1500 approx), this slum rests on a part of a 5 acres land that’s under litigation for the past 16 years. Families have been here for over 15 years. A mix of local and migrant, very poor house-holds, have lived here in dismal conditions with no access to basic amenities.

Mahesh Foundation is an NGO working for the welfare of children and youth affected by HIV/AIDS in society by ensuring them education and encouraging them to fight against HIV/AIDS deadly disease. By having a formidable presence in its area of operations and well-estab-lished networking, the foundation believes in holistic, sustainable de-velopment much like the SELCO foundation. Mahesh Foundation has identified Kanbargi as its focus areas of work, committing to bring posi-tive change in the community starting with health, education and energy access. The energy centre was recognized as a good entry point for the community not only to access basic energy requirements through a decentralized charging station but becomes a ‘community hub’ to start developments on many other fronts. Moreover energy was a crit-ical gap that needed to be bridged even for the health and education activities carried out by the Mahesh foundation.

The vast change in quality of light and living after sunset is ex-tremely evident here. There is not only increased productivity levels in the homes but also gives a safer feeling to the users and the community. Foundation doctors are positive that the health levels and practices within the community have started transforming. Dr Faraz from Mahesh Foundation has also not-ed a decrease in children’s bronchitis cases since the kerosene lamps have been replaced by LED bulbs.

IEC - November 2013Mahesh foundation identified an operator, Shivappa, from the com-munity who plays a critical role in solving community issues.

Light: The IEC originally served lighitng systems to 30 households, impacting around 200 individualsMobile Charging: The community used to spend around Rs. 50 per month to charge their mobiles in shops near their work places. Some of them also reported of thefts from the charging points in these shops. They now have access to a movbile charging station at the IEC.Health: Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, a health clinic is run in the evenings at the centre. Doctors now have a clean space to consult, store medicines and conduct awareness programs. Mahesh Foundation has been running a strong health program at Kanbargi for two years and the centre was highly needed to improve the quality of check-ups and service. Education: An Anganwadi and basic literacy program runs every day at the centre. The government has also assigned one teacher along with Mahesh Foundations’ own staff that maintains and runs the centre. Mahesh Foundation has an aggressive integration pro-gram to encourage every child to attend this gap school.

Upcoming Services:Water Purification System &

Livelihood Centre

January 2015A solar-powered projector was

installed to help encourage educational programmes for

the children as well as health awareness programmes for the

community. A different social issue is selected every week and a film is shown in the community followed by an open discussion. About 30-40 community mem-

bers participate every week. The project is being highly appreciat-ed and has emerged as a model

digital anganwadi in the region.

The centre was conceptualized and design in partnership with Mahesh Foundation. A custom design community centre was developed and implemented by SELCO Foundation: Urban Community Lab consid-ering all activities the centre could cater to. The centre is designed with passive design techniques using locally available materials. The roof is composed of a reco sheet make by up-cycling tetra packs.

By 2015, the IEC expanded to providing lighting systems to 140 households (840 bene-ficiaries)

IEC ServiceTimeline

Case Study 4

Nomadic Artisan Communities

Dholakwale Community (2013)

This settlement is a nomadic north Indian community that is skilled in crafting musical instruments of the drum family. They have been in Ban-galore for the past 4 years and plan to stay in Bangalore for the next 2-3 years. The men in the community craft their dholaks (drums) and live with their families on an encroached public land. Since their homes served as living as well as work spaces, lighting emerged as a social and economic (from a savings as well as a productivity perspective) need through our initial engagement with the community.

Our need assessment exercises also revealed that they used kero-sene and firewood as their main source of energy and fuel. Since the market for dholaks was very sparse, it was very hard for them to give an estimate of their monthly income. While on better days, they were able to make arouns 1000 rupees, most of the days it was hard for them to make any sales above Rs. 100-200. Thus, spending 100 rupees (2-3 litres in the black market) on kerosene, was a large amount for them.

Being one of the most economically backward communities, initial-ly providing portable but proper, efficient home lighting systems to this community was a challenge. To begin with, 30 families came together and showed a keen interest in the project. They were also willing to put down a deposit before anything materialized to show their buy in and commitment. The community insisted that no one needed to be paid for managing the centre and that they would do it together by taking shared responsibility.

They also have the provision to return the system at any time in case they move to a new city. They have the option of using mobile charging as well and are doing that with connectors they have purchased them-selves from the market. This model is unique because as they pay the rent, they own the system. Once they finish paying the capi-tal costs they need not continue to pay for the home light.

Designing an IEC for a Nomad-ic Community: A simple cart was modified and used as the housing entity. This centre will travel with the community where ever they go. The community has moved twice already since the inception of the IEC.

But, does energy access ensure increase in livelihood?In our initial interactions, the community expressed how long business hours and during peak sale seasons, they weren’t able to meet the de-mand as they could not work after sunset. The light thus, served extreme-ly useful to them and should have brought about a significant change to their incomes- savings (from kerosene) as well as more products to sell (due to increased working hours).

However, this wasn’t the case. We realised that ensuring more produc-tion, did not ensure sales. The community lacked access to a formal mar-ketspace. Further, the demand for the product in itself was very less. The IEC, thus, served as an entry-point intervention for a livelihood project.

Product Diversification: Working with designers to create more mar-ket-friendly innovative products- for example: lamp stands.

Market Linkage: Looking at branding, social media presence (face-book), and connect to potential markets, the dhlakwale displayed their products in a craft fair in Bangalore in 2014. From then on they have been invited for various exhibitions across the city and also in Chennai. These exhibitions have helped them gain recognition, increase their income by around 50% and build further contacts. These results should assist the community to sustain and stabilize their livelihood.

Impact on Health and Safety: One of the biggest problems that came up in theneed assessment was a threat from snakes, rodents and scorpions- biting young children and infants in the dark. Access to light in the night, ensures a general feeling of safety against insects or animals as well as intruders, making them feel less vulnerable.

Impact on General wellbeing: The community has constantly ex-pressed how wonderful it is to see light for the first time in their homes and feel productive and active even after sunset. It gives them the flex-ibility to manage their time in whichever way, and not feel handicapped by the darkness. Some members aslo expressed how the light gives them a hope for a better future.

Case Study 5

Operator to Entrepreneur

Kariammana Agrahara (2013)

Kariyamman Agrahara slum houses over 500 households. Migrant Labour families have been residing here since 2010. Various occupa-tions like contractors, labourers, cleaners, carpenters, gardening etc are common here. Families here are from different parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Hence, and tend to speak mixed languages. They use kerosene and firewood as their main source of energy and fuel. An average family consists of 5 to 8 members.

An existing entrepreneur who runs a petty shop in the slum and is a part of the community was chosen as the natural operator for this centre. The energy centre was built around his shop to accommodate extra space for his new business (energy services) and to accommodate a community space that can be used to expand on other services and activities. His already existing business, relationship with the communi-ty, entrepreneurial skills were beneficial for the centre to run smoothly and expand instantly. The centre was designed with provision for space and enough energy for activities like awareness campaigns, community TV programs, projector and laptop usage for educational activities relat-ed to children etc.

Since the centre was approached through a uniquely donor driven pro-cesses, partners to use the space and resources at the centre were left to be identified once the centre was up and fully operational.

Kariyamana Agrahar, the first IEC initiated through Cassidian support grew at a tremendous speed. Kumar, the operator expanded from 30 households to serve 90 households, in the next eight months itself. He also grew to accomodate a solar powered refrigeration, as well as facilitated the construction of the first temporary housing solution for urban migrant (a built environment project). In November 2014, with the help of S3IDF, Kumar was able to take a loan, purchase 120 systems and become an IEC entrepreneur.

IEC - June 2013

40 Lighting Systems and a Mobile Charging stations

November 2014Operator to Entrepreneur

Seeing the growth of his business, his en-trepreneurial skills, Kumar (the operator), decid-ed to own the business and turn into an energy entrepreneur. With the help of SELCO Foun-dation, Kumar was able to get a loan through S3IDF to purchase 120 lighting systems. Being an entrepreneur further incentivizes him to grow his business further.

He has noted a rise of 100% in his income since his time at the IEC.

The building of the centre was contracted to a local individual architect who involved con-tractors and labourers from the community to build the centre.

IEC ServiceTimeline

Upcoming Services: Eye Testing through a remote clinic and a locally trained entre-preneur

February 2014Housing for Urban Migrants (H.U.M)

The home utilizes locally available materials (bamboo, casaurina and tarp) while incorpo-rating improvements such as increased head height, better natural lighting and cross ventila-tion. The intervention was well-received by the com-munity, with many inquiries and leads for putting up more of such improved homes. Currently Malamma’s family that is residing in the house, our community champions, are the direct feedback loop for additional tweaking. Further improvement in the aspects of spatial efficien-cy, water storage and cooking are also being executed in collaboration with the family and the rest of the community.

January 2014+30 Lighting Systems and solar powered refrigerator

March 2014+20 Lighting Sys-tems

December 2014+20 Lighting Systems

Case Study 6

Urja Gram Kendra Kalahandi District, Orissa (2014)

Grid access in very remote locations is unfeasible and individual solar home lighting systems provided by government under various schemes, over a time, become dysfunctional due to lack of local servicing op-tions, lack of awareness generated on maintenance of the system and because the system is provided free, communities in desperate times; tend to sell the free systems. These are some major issues, depriving tribal and rural communities of basic energy access. Furthermore, being at the receiving end for the past few decades; community mindsets, awareness and priority level in these extremely remote communities require an innovative and contextualized approach. Learning from the Urban Community Lab (UCL) of SELCO Foundation, TCL has adapted the concept of Integrated Energy Centres and contextualized it to address the need of basic energy of tribal communities.

The expenditure per household on lightning the home using kerosene, wood and other techniques was Rs. 40 per month i.e. 6.7% of total monthly income, with Rs. 30 per month, they are generating economic savings by 10%.

In tribal communities due to lack of existing social infrastructure, IECs are housed in an operators house (selected by the village in com-munity meetings) and the community takes charged solar lights in the evenings from the operators house and similarly next morning returns to the operator to charge the light. This central system of charging ensures safety of the entire system and if any repair is required the operator is responsible to get it fixed from SELCO Foundation. Villages or hamlets with no electricity are generally targeted by SLECO Foundation but within a year , there has been an increased demand for the concept of IEC from the villages which have access to grid, primarily because when there is need for light in the evenings, grid is never available.

In 2014, 82 households have been reached through the con-cept of IEC. Currently, these VLCs offer only lighting and mobile charging services.

Case Study 7

Looking beyond light in the Tribal Areas of OrissaThe concept of an Integrated Energy Centre, particularly the rental services was deemed an appropriate solution given the affordability and social dy-namics. Given the vulnerable status of the tribal community particularly given the nature of occupation and absence of services the IEC was customized to suit their condition. The IEC is also a concept suited to entry point inter-ventions as a way to build trust with the community through a co-designed centralized service. It serves as a focal point to deepen understanding of community dynamics and also add on services needed by the community.

Jan Seva Kendra, Gunpur Village (2015)

The services that were provided through the IEC in Kalahandi, Orissa are different than services provided through IECs that existed of SELCO. The need was understood through continuous interactions with people travelling from interior villages to town to avail of certain services. The need was not executed through a village specific criterion but rather concentrating on area specific needs.

Need: People incurred heavy expenditure on getting Xerox and passport size pictures clicked on transportation from villages to town. They had to travel 30 kms-75km, in some cases, the expenditure cost was as high as Rs 300 (wage day loss, transportation cost, food cost) to get Rs 10 Xerox done. Some petty shop keepers had previously tried to keep printers to provide the service but they soon had to shut it down, due to erratic power supply.

An entrepreneur run centre was set up at a strategic location, catering to various different services and run on solar technology.

Impact: A strategic location was identified with an entrepreneur to run. Ratho Duria, is a young boy of 22 years, who is 9th pass and used to work in bank as form filling assistant- where he earned Rs 2 per form he filled. In a day, maximum he could fill 5-10 forms. Lack of opportunities, made Ratho restless, and as survival strategy he would migrate to Gujurat and Kerela in search of work. Identifying his entrepreneurial spirit, the project was chosen to do with him.

Now, Ratho earns Rs 500-Rs 8,000 per week, with approximately 10 customers a day at his shop for various services and they are able to save their day wage, transportation cost and the harassment tribal community’s face in town.

Currently, Ratho provides services like print, scan, Xerox, download of music & movie, CD on rent, passport size photograph and WLL phone. He will in soon be expanding to renting portable solar home lighting system, sound system, lamination and internet access.

Impact