Solar pumping in remote villages: the 100-100 project

In 1992 Auroville’s renewable energy unit, AuroRE, began providing renewable energy applications and solutions within Auroville and to rural and urban India. One of AuroRE’s biggest projects was installing solar water pumping systems under a government subsidy programme. Between 1997 – 2003 they installed almost 1,000 solar pumps in six Indian States, with Punjab alone accounting for 700 of these. A significant number were also installed in Auroville, giving a big boost to solar applications in the community.

However, in 2003 the government subsidy was removed and it was not clear how the government wanted to promote solar energy. AuroRE, deciding they did not see a future in government subsidy schemes, began to focus more on providing renewable energy solutions in Auroville. This included designing integrated solar systems for houses and offices using the most efficient technology, like vacuum tube water heaters and imported charge controllers and inverters.

Sunlit Future

The Auroville renewable energy unit, Sunlit Future, evolved out of AuroRE and began operating in 2010. In this year, they began developing grid-connected systems as a better way of utilising solar. These systems allow surplus energy generated by one’s panels to be fed into the grid. Bi-directional meters keep track of how much is fed in and taken out of the grid and one’s monthly bills are adjusted accordingly. These systems also obviate the need for batteries, which are about 40% of the cost of a stand-alone solar system and have a high environmental footprint (see Auroville Today no… for more information on grid-connected systems).

Today, buildings like the Matrimandir, the Town Hall, the Foundation and SAIIER offices and Future School are already solar grid-connected. The potential is huge. As Rishi Kapoor, executive of Sunlit Future explains, “In Auroville we can utilise vast unused rooftops in places like Bharat Nivas instead of putting power plants in the ground where you lose valuable land. So there is an idea that by the 50th anniversary of Auroville we should have 50 rooftops with 500 kW of solar capacity. This would be green power. Also, because the electricity is generated and used here, the transmission losses will be much lower and the voltage more stable.”

However, the possibility of Auroville being totally self-sufficient in its energy supply and off the TNEB grid remains a dream until the storage problem is solved.

AuroRE’s decision not to be involved in government subsidy schemes after 2003 did not mean it stopped working in the larger India. Many Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working in remote rural locations where there was no electricity supply came to know of the solar pumping installations AuroRE had done in the Punjab and other states, and began asking AuroRE to design projects for them. Between 2003 – 2012 AuroRE and, later, Sunlit Future installed about 100 solar pumps for various NGOs in about a hundred villages.

“We had unconsciously created a demand in a sector where no other solution was possible,” says Rishi. “Initially we thought we were just providing a technical solution; we were not thinking of the impact upon the people. But when these people started treating us as gods, we began to realize that bringing reliable clean water to a village where no adequate water supply had existed before brings about a whole cascade of other benefits.”

The benefits include vastly reducing the time and energy spent, largely by women, on bringing water from remote sources and a reduction in water-related diseases. These, in turn, generate other benefits like more time for childcare and livelihood activities, decreased infant mortality (water-borne diseases being one of the main causes), more disposable income as health improves, and better attendance of children, particularly girls, at school.

When the provision of a clean, reliable water supply is coupled with improved sanitation, which is often the case with these projects, the impact upon health and general wellbeing is even more pronounced and the risk of sexual violence against women due to open defecation is eliminated.

“So by one small technical intervention you handle many big issues,” says Rishi. “This experience was the inspiration for the 100-100 project. I thought if we could install 100 pumps in 100 remote, underdeveloped villages of India, we could make a huge impact on these people’s lives.”

The 100 – 100 project

The 100 – 100 project is a collaboration between Sunlit Future, a number of NGOs and Grundfos, the Danish solar pump manufacturer. AuroRE and Sunlit Future have a long association with Grundfos: because of their reliability they have been installing Grundfos pumps in Auroville and elsewhere for many years.

A few years ago, a couple from Denmark approached Sunlit Future to do an energy-conservation project in a Tamil Nadu hospital to be funded by the Grundfos Foundation. Sunlit Future installed a 30 kW grid-connected plant, ten solar pumps, and replaced hundreds of fans and tube lights with energy-efficient ones. It was a success; there was a big saving in energy consumption and costs. But Rishi was dissatisfied. Having seen the impact of installing solar pumps in remote locations, he felt that the Grundfos money could be put to more productive use in areas where there is no electricity and the people are struggling to survive.

He wrote a proposal to install 100 solar pumps in 100 remote villages in one year and Grundfos agreed to back it. It was agreed that Sunlit Future would provide the technical expertise while Grundfos would provide the panels and the pumps. But it would be the local NGOs who would finance the drilling of the bore well and the infrastructure to store and supply the water to the villagers.

“So, financially, it’s an equal partnership,” says Rishi.

In fact, the NGOs are the key to the success of the scheme. As Rishi points out, raising the money, providing the technical expertise and installing the system is the easy part. It is in the implementation that the challenge lies. And here the NGOs play a key role because they do the crucial groundwork in the villages.

“If the local people’s wishes are not taken into account, what we are providing will not be utilised well or will be wasted,” says Rishi. “We are outsiders, foreigners there. We don’t speak the language, we don’t know the local culture, we don’t know the local dynamics or the caste scenario. This is why we rely so heavily on our local NGO partners, all of whom I had worked with previously so I knew they would command the respect of the villagers.”

It is the local NGO that, once the project has been advertised, receives requests from villages in the region and, after considering various factors, makes a selection. Rishi visits those villages to work out the optimal technical solution for the siting of the well, panels, water tank etc. Then Rishi designs the pump and water delivery systems in such a way they not only fulfil the present demand but can also cope with increased water consumption in the future due to population growth or the addition of sanitation systems.

Meanwhile the NGO negotiates with the villagers for the release of private land for the project, if necessary, and ensures that everybody in the village is on board. This is often a condition for the project going ahead.

The NGO forms a village committee that, under the guidance of the NGO representative, will hold the project. It is the village committee and the NGO that is responsible for ensuring that the system once installed is well maintained. They open a local bank account and ensure that each household in the village pays an initial deposit and then makes a monthly contribution – usually of between Rs 30 -50 – towards the maintenance of the system. “This makes everybody feel responsible for the upkeep of the asset,” explains Rishi. “It also pays for one person in the village to clean the solar panels and to operate and service the pump: we provide the training for this. Also, if something happens to the system, they have the capacity to repair it or to buy a new pump or panel without being dependent on further grants to keep the system running.”

The story so far

In the first phase, beginning in December last year, 28 pumps and water delivery systems were installed in 28 remote villages in Maharashtra, Orissa, and Madhya Pradesh. In the next phase, which is now being completed, 32 systems are being installed. In 2016, 40 more sites will be identified and systems installed.

The impact so far

The first phase resulted in more than 10,000 people in 1500 households having, for the first time, access to safe drinking water and improved hygiene and sanitation facilities. Moreover, the systems are being maintained well and most of the beneficiaries are making monthly contributions.

These are impressive statistics. But there is an even larger objective to this project, and that is to arrest the migration from rural areas to the cities by providing the means for people in those rural areas to remain there and be productive. How successful has the project been in achieving this?

Rishi says the 100 – 100 project is still too new to be able to be able to assess this. But he mentions a village in Madhya Pradesh where they did similar work in 2012. “It was in a desperate situation. The village had no electricity supply, it was on top of a hill and for two months every summer there was no water in the village. The only source was a parched open well at the bottom of the hill, into which they would lower children on ropes to scoop a few precious drops into buckets. The whole village was doing this for two months every year. The situation was so bad that women from other villages refused to marry the men from this village because they knew their only task would be to collect water.

“That village was a perfect place for migration: nobody wanted to stay there. But, with the help of a local NGO and with funding and expertise from the international mining company, Rio Tinto, a new well was blasted out of the rock two kilometres away, and, using a solar pump, we transported the water up to the village. This changed their lives.

“What you have to understand is that the needs of an ordinary person living in a village like this are minimal. They don’t want to drive a big car. They are very happy if they have food, clean water and good healthcare, and if they see a future for their children. If these things are provided, they are very happy to stay where they are.

“Our focus is water. Obviously other components include health and education, and whether or not this is included in the project depends on who your NGO partner is. About 50% of the villages in the 100 – 100 project will have sanitation included. In Orissa we are working with Gram Vikas, a very dynamic NGO. They have big schools in the rural areas so the education component is also taken care of locally.”

Is it sustainable?

Yet, India still has thousands of remote villages that are not connected to the grid: Rishi mentions Maharashtra where, in an area of one thousand square kilometres, not one village is electrified. And even in villages where there is a connection, there is frequently no reliable supply.

How to meet this huge challenge? Is this model where NGOs are financed by individuals or companies to do the work a sustainable one? Shouldn’t the State Governments be playing a bigger role in providing clean drinking water to remote villages?

Rishi agrees that the government has the resources and the administrative machinery to do this. Every village in the country has a panchayat committee and every region has a Block Development Officer who is responsible for overseeing development. The Government of India even has a solar-supplied drinking water policy in place, and any village can apply for the grant.

“But the reality,” says Rishi, “is that nothing is moving. Most people are not even aware of the scheme. And even if they are aware, by the time the money that is coming from the Central Government trickles down to where it is needed, it is only one tenth of what was allocated. So even if there is a will in the Government to change things, the implementation model is lacking.”

Some State Governments have taken up the work, but with mixed results. Rishi mentions a Maharashtra Government project that was inspired by a successful project of Sunlit Future in a remote village of the State. “They came up with a scheme to implement 200 solar water pumping projects. However, when I visited those areas a few years later, I found that most of the 200 pumps had stopped working.

“The problem is the government used different criteria from ours. The electrical cables were too thin and the whole pipeline structure was designed for a city rather than a village, so it was unworkable. In addition to that, often the panels were installed next to a remote borewell, so many of them were stolen.

“Failures like this give a bad name to the whole solar industry.”

At the same time, Rishi acknowledges that NGOs cannot keep relying upon grants or donations from industry to do the work. But he believes there is another option. He points out that the cost of implementing these kinds of projects is comparatively low. For about six lakh rupees, it is possible to install a solar pump and water distribution network for a village of between 150 – 200 households. “So another option would be if a funding agency would advance the money and the NGO holding the project took responsibility for seeing that the beneficiaries repaid this over a period of time. It wouldn’t have to be a huge monthly contribution – perhaps between Rs 50 – 100 a household – and I’m sure that the people, once they see the reliability of the project, would be willing to participate.

“In this way we could sustain the momentum of this crucial work.”