Decentralised renewable energy: Scope, relevance and applications in the Indian context

Presently used centralised energy planning model ignores energy needs of rural areas and poor and has also led to environmental degradation, whereas decentralised energy planning model is in the interest of efficient utilisation of resources. Energy planning at the village level is the bottom limit of the application of decentralised planning principle. The individual villages are the smallest social units where the energy consumption occurs. Renewable energy is energy derived from sources that are being replaced by nature, such as water, wind, solar or biomass. Renewable sources are essentially non-polluting if applied correctly. The paper presents a review of the important decentralised renewable energy options, related case studies of successful deployment of renewable energy technologies in India and resulting lessons learnt. Case studies discussed in the present work show the feasibility of decentralised energy options for the residential and small scale applications in a village or a cluster of villages. The paper also details the different initiatives taken by the government of India to promote decentralised energy production in India. It is found that the small scale power generation systems based on the renewable energy sources are more efficient and cost effective. Thus the focus should be on the small scale renewable energy technologies that can be implemented locally by communities and small scale producers, but can make a significant overall contribution towards the national energy supply.