Going Solar to Overcome Power Outages in India

<p>March 2018&mdash;Sumangala Patil is a 45-year-old home-based woman entrepreneur who lives with her husband and two school-going daughters in Narendra village, which is located in the Dharwad district of&nbsp;the southern Indian state of Karnataka.</p>

<p>Patil, like most women in her village, provides financial assistance to her family by selling <em>rotis</em> (Indian flat bread) made from a locally grown crop called <em>jowar</em>. But like most households in her village, Patil&rsquo;s business was regularly&nbsp;disrupted due to an unreliable power supply.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Due to frequent power cuts in my village, I was only able to make 150-200 rotis a day,&rdquo; says Patil. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s an earning of only $10 per day, meaning I was unable to meet the large demand in the market.&rdquo;</p>

<p>To help women like Patil manage their businesses well and increase their daily earnings, USAID, in partnership with the SELCO Foundation, launched the program &ldquo;Technology Innovation for Sustainable Energy Access and Poverty Alleviation&rdquo;<strong> </strong>in 2016. Patil borrowed 30,000 Indian rupees (Rs.), or $469, to replace her electric roti maker with an efficient solar-powered&nbsp;roti rolling machine, specially designed by SELCO&rsquo;s energy engineers.</p>

<p>Under the program, SELCO&nbsp;combines technology, financial and social&nbsp;services for people who are&nbsp;in greatest need of energy access and delivery. SELCO identifies clean energy solutions that are easy to apply and can assist the poor in income-generation activities, thus leading to&nbsp;improved&nbsp;well-being, health, education and livelihoods.&nbsp;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Most families in the village are day laborers, unable to invest a lot in microenterprises. That is why we designed a simple financial model under this USAID program called the Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency scheme for women entrepreneurs. The loan facility enabled Patil to own the solar machine on a monthly payment of only Rs. 963 ($15),&rdquo; says Suresh Savalgi of SELCO.</p>

<p>For Patil, the switch to reliable solar energy and the cost of the machine has been worth every <em>paisa</em>. &ldquo;It works as good as the electric machine. In fact, it is much better,&rdquo; she says with a smile. &ldquo;After buying the roti rolling machine, I am making between 600 to 800 rotis a day and I&rsquo;m earning more than triple what I used to earn before. This is all because I don&rsquo;t have to worry about power cuts anymore.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Aided by reliable after-sales service as&nbsp;part of the SELCO program, Patil believes she will be able to deliver much more with the machine. &ldquo;So far, I have had no issues with the machine, and even if I didn&rsquo;t understand anything, the project staff has been very helpful in resolving any of my concerns. It&rsquo;s like this machine was made just for me,&rdquo; laughs Patil.</p>

<p>The solar-powered roti rolling machine is one example of how a simple energy intervention can create avenues for entrepreneurs to improve their livelihoods. By reaching a larger customer base, Patil hopes to earn more, save more and send her girls to college.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I hope they too can study enough to create something like this that can help a lot of other women improve their lives and lives of their families,&rdquo; says Patil.</p>

<p>USAID&rsquo;s Technology Innovation for Sustainable Energy Access and Poverty Alleviation program, which runs from 2016 to 2019, is designed to push people permanently out of poverty by using sustainable energy as a catalyst.&nbsp;So far, 20,000 people have benefited from the program through access to innovative clean energy solutions to improve their livelihood and well-being.</p>

<p><strong>LINKS</strong></p>

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,“It works as good as the electric machine. In fact, it is much better.”