Abhishek Jain Council on Energy, Environment and Water 23 February, 2017 National Consultation of SDG7, NITI Aayog © Council on Energy, Environment and Water, 2015
Realities and Challenges of Energy Access in India Findings and experiences from the largest energy access survey in rural India
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CEEW: one of South Asia’s leading think-tanks
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Setting the context
▪ Why Energy Access? – One of the fundamental necessities for development – Public health burden, loss of productivity and efficiency
▪ Why India? – Home to the maximum population with lack of electricity & clean cooking energy
▪ Why rural India? – Significant disparity between urban and rural areas – Urban poor
▪ Why the six states? – Historically lagging behind in energy access and development – Collectively a population of 400 million
Why this study? 51 Districts; 714 Villages; 8,566 households; 2.5 million data points
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A comprehensive and pragmatic approach to measure energy access
▪ Existing statics – Hide, as much they reveal – Number of villages/households electrified; Number of LPG connection
▪ Energy access is neither unidimensional nor binary
▪ Energy access has various facets and aspects
▪ Striking the balance between – Detailing – Measurable, replicable & scalable
▪ Identifying the barriers to access
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Health & Safety
Availability
Affordability
Quality
Reliability
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ACCESS MEASUREMENT FRAMEWORK
A multi-dimensional, multi-tier approach
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Looking beyond the connections (1/2)
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Tier
Dimension
Tier 0 Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3
Capacity No electricity
Lighting + Basic
entertainment /
communication
(Radio/ Mobile)
(~1-50W)
Lighting + Air
circulation +
entertainment /
communication (TV/
Computer) (~50-
500W)
Tier 2 services + Medium
to Heavy loads
(>500W)
Duration <4hrs >4hrs and <8hrs >8hrs and <20hrs >=20hrs
Reliability (Black-
out Days) 5 or more days 2-4 days 1 day 0
Quality* NH > 3; NL > 6 NH = 0-3; NL = 0-6 NH = 0-1; NL = 0-3 NH + NL = 0
Affordability Unaffordable Affordable
Legality Illegal Legal
*NH is number of high voltage days in a month causing appliance damage; NL is number of low voltage days in a
month limiting appliance usage.
NOTE: For dimensions where the categories span multiple tiers, only the higher tier values apply. For example,
affordability can only be categorised as Tier 1 or Tier 3. The same is the case for legality.
Electricity Access – Multi-tier, multi-dimensional Framework
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Tier
Dimension
Tier 0 Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3
Health & Safety
Only traditional fuel
used (firewood, dung-
cakes, agricultural
residue)
A mix of traditional fuel and BLEN (Biogas, LPG,
Electricity, Natural Gas) is used
Only source of cooking fuel
includes BLEN
Availability Cooking less because of
availability
Unsatisfied with
availability Neutral to availability Satisfied with availability
Quality Quality of cooking is not adequate Quality of cooking is adequate
Affordability Not affordable Affordable
Convenience Both Difficult to use and Time consuming Either Difficult to use
or Time consuming
Neither difficult, nor Time
Consuming
NOTE: For dimensions where the categories span multiple tiers, only the higher tier values apply. For example quality and
affordability dimensions can only take on Tier 1 or Tier 3. Health and safety can take on Tier 0, Tier 2 and Tier 3.
Cooking Energy Access – Multi-tier, multi-dimensional Framework
Looking beyond at the connections (2/2)
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ELECTRICITY ACCESS What is the state of play?
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Access to electricity is still very limited
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63%
27%
6% 3%
Spread of rural households across electricity access tiers - Six States
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
96%
69%
37%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
VillagesElectrified
HouseholdsElectrified
Householdsabove Tier 0
Electricity Access – Six states
No
Yes
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Bihar Jharkhand MadhyaPradesh
Odisha Uttar Pradesh West Bengal
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f h
ou
seh
old
s
Grid connection and primary source of lighting
Grid electrified Grid as primary source of lighting
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Not all states or regions are equally bad or good
79% 73% 64%
47%
71%
25%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f ru
ral h
ou
seh
old
s
Spread of households across electricity access tiers
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Why do a majority of households remain in the bottom-most tier?
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14%
43%
33%
39%
7%
30%
1%
13%
7% 4%
2% 0%
34%
17% 18% 18%
16% 13%
28%
22%
27% 24%
2%
5%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Madhya Pradesh Bihar Jharkhand Uttar Pradesh West Bengal Odisha
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f ru
ral h
ou
seh
old
s
Bottlenecks at Tier 0
Capacity Duration Quality Reliability
Lack of connection
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Why a third of households still not connected to grid?
• 34% do no have grid infrastructure in the vicinity
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25%
12% 8% 10% 12%
0%
34%
24%
6%
20%
31%
7% 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Bihar Jharkhand Madhya Pradesh Odisha Uttar Pradesh West Bengal
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f ru
ral h
ou
seh
old
s
Reasons for not having connection
Unavailability of Infrastructure Other Reasons
• For the remaining 66%: – Affordability of connection (56%), perception gap on recurring expenditure (50%),
unreliable/poor supply (48%) : becomes the main reasons to not get a connection
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Connections alone do not guarantee electricity access
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– 50% HHs receive electricity only up to 12 hours a day
▫ 97.5% in West Bengal; 23.5% in Uttar Pradesh
– 31% HHs face 5 or more black-out day in a month
– 30% HHs face 4 or more low voltage days in a month
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Bihar Jharkhand MadhyaPradesh
Odisha UttarPradesh
WestBengal
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f el
ectr
ifie
d h
ou
seh
old
s
Daily duration of supply
>16 hours
13-16 hours
9-12 hours
5-8 hours
0-4 hours
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Bihar Jharkhand MadhyaPradesh
Odisha UttarPradesh
WestBengal
Evening hours of supply
>4 hours
4 hours
3 hours
2 hours
1 hour
0 hours
– ~46% of electrified HHs remain in the bottom-most tier (Tier 0)
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How decentralised technologies fare?
• ~7.5% of households use lanterns, SHS or micro-grids; ~5% rely exclusively – ~3.5% use micro-grids
• 91% of the micro-grid were diesel-based
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52%
64%
16%
5%
18% 10%
80% 85%
54%
17%
65%
28%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
BIHAR JHARKHAND MADHYAPRADESH
ODISHA UTTARPRADESH
WESTBENGAL
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f ru
ral h
ou
seh
old
s
Awareness about decentralised electricity options
Micro-grid Solar based electricity
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 24
Daily duation of hours for decentralised electricity technologies
SHS Solar Lantern Micro-grids
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Peoples’ perceptions and preferences about electricity
• Clear-cut preference for government to remain in-charge of energy provision
Support for decentralised energy technologies
• Nearly a third households expressed preference for a micro-grid over regular grid.
• ~78% rural households expressed preference for subsidy on solar lanterns in lieu of subsidy on kerosene
Illegal and corrupt practices
• HHs in at least 80% of villages reported that electricity stealing exist in their village
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We are making progress, but lot more needs to be done!
• GARV2: From village electrification to HH electrification
• Eventually, moving towards “24x7” power for all. – Monitoring
• Incentivising better supply (reliability reflective tariffs)
• Entitlement vs. Commodity – Beyond a threshold, incentivising cost-recovery
payments
• Leverage the strength of DRE solutions – particularly mini-grids – Access to remote habitations – Management of rural customers: service reliability, revenue collection
• Looking beyond households – Community services: Healthcare; Education – Productive applications
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COOKING ENERGY ACCESS What is the state of play?
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Clean cooking energy access is much more limited
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22% 14% 5% 0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
LPG Connection LPG as primary cookingfuel
LPG as only cookingfuel
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f ru
ral h
ou
seh
old
s
LPG adoption and use – rural areas (six states) 2015
Yes No
78%
15%
5% 2%
Distribution of rural households across clean cooking energy access tiers - all six states
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
▪ 6% households had to curtail their cooking needs on account of limited fuel availability
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Cooking energy access remain low in all six states with Uttar Pradesh performing marginally better
83% 94%
83% 92%
68% 78%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f ru
ral h
ou
seh
old
s
Spread of households across clean cooking energy access tiers
Tier 3
Tier 2
Tier 1
Tier 0
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Why 78% of rural households in these states do not have LPG?
• Awareness – Over 1/3rd of the households do not believe (or are unaware) that using LPG instead
of the chulha has positive health benefits
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72%
95% 88%
42%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
LPG distributornot available in
vicinity
Highconnection
cost
High monthlyexpenses
Lack ofAwareness
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f H
Hs
no
t h
avin
g LP
G
con
nec
tio
ns
• Affordability • Upfront cost • Recurring cost
• Availability
6 7
11
9
7
3
0
2
4
6
8
10
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BIHAR JHARKHAND MADHYAPRADESH
ODISHA UTTARPRADESH
WESTBENGAL
Me
dia
n o
ne
way
dis
tnac
e (
Km
)
Median one-way distance that a households travel to procure LPG cylinder
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How traditional biomass fares?
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▪ Biomass is not always free:
– Only 44% rural households entirely depend on free-of-cash biomass for cooking
▪ Abundance of freely available biomass is inversely correlated to LPG subscription and interest in LPG
▪ Biomass is not cheap:
– Households that buy traditional fuel spend more on their cooking energy than those using only LPG
▫ INR 563 vs INR 385
42%
54%
38%
69%
31%
66%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
BIHAR JHARKHAND MADHYAPRADESH
ODISHA UTTARPRADESH
WESTBENGAL
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f ru
ral h
ou
seh
old
s
Rural Households relying entirely on free-of-cost biomass
0
500
1000
1500
2000
BIHAR JHARKHAND MADHYAPRADESH
ODISHA UTTARPRADESH
WESTBENGAL
Mo
nth
ly e
xpen
dit
ure
on
co
oki
ng
ener
gy (
INR
/mo
th)
Monthly expenditure on cooking energy for households reporting real outlay
All households spending some real cash for cooking energy
All household spending cash, but not on LPG
All household using only LPG
51% 59% 57%
63%
38%
69%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
BIHAR JHARKHAND MADHYAPRADESH
ODISHA UTTARPRADESH
WESTBENGAL
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f H
Hs
wit
ho
ut
LPG
Not interested in LPG
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How do decentralised technologies fare?
▪ Less than 1% rural households use improved cookstoves (0.74%) and biogas (0.21%) for cooking
▪ 40% are interested in improved cookstoves, but only 5% in biogas
▪ Technology resilience & maintenance remains a major issue
– Improved cookstoves
▫ 90% of those who are unsatisfied with their IC, state frequent breakdown as one of the reason
▫ More than 83% users state poor maintenance service as one of the reason
– Biogas plants
▫ 75% of those who are unsatisfied with their IC, state frequent breakdown as one of the reason
▫ More than 82% users state poor maintenance service as one of the reason
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Peoples’ perceptions and preferences
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▪ People don’t use chulha by choice
▪ Clean cooking energy does not find as much priority
▪ Less than 1/4th of household prioritise improved cookstoves
– West Bengal (39%), Odisha (38%), Jharkhand (31%)
▪ Only 5% household prioritise biogas for cooking
– West Bengal (14%), Madhya Pradesh (10%)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Improvedbiomass
cook stove
IncreasedLPG subsidy
Improvedbiogas plant
Availabilityof LPG
pro
po
rtio
n o
f ru
al h
ou
seh
old
s
Priority areas of government support for clean cooking energy
Rank 4
Rank 3
Rank 2
Rank 1
For HHs with traditional chulha
as primary cooking arrangement
Too Time Consuming
No Yes
Difficult to Cook No 11% 33%
Yes 5% 51%
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CC Energy Access for all: Needs a multi-prong approach
Reducing the barriers from adoption to sustained use – Competing with free-of-cash biomass : Needs to generate a bottom-up demand – Awareness; Livelihoods
LPG • Ujjwala – Recognised the barrier of upfront cost – Added more than 10 million connections in less than a year
• Plans to add 10,000 new distributor
– EMI provision for APL households
Improved cookstoves • Tier 4 cookstoves: Need to boost R&D – Standardisation of fuel/pallestisation – On-ground performance: Emissions; Resilience; Sustained use
Biogas • At least 20 millions HHs could be effectively covered – Biogas as a service - Enterprise based models: HHs or community-level – Replicating the success stories
Technologies over the horizon: solar cookstoves • Need to boost R&D
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