Micro Solar Grid

Status of Electricity in Jammu and Kashmir

        Energy is a vital element which contributes to the overall development of the region or a country. Access to modern clean energy sources have shown significant effect on elevating poverty, generating employment locally, increasing agriculture productivity, supplying drinking water, improving health care services, providing better education and also in providing safety and security for children, women and rural population.

Electricity being one the cleanest modes of energy transfer, affects most of human activities in every sector which is a key input to the development (World Energy Outlook, 2004). Yet, over 75 million rural households (~45%) in India do not have electricity access (Census 2011). On the other hand, electrified households in most part of the rural areas of the country suffer from load shedding and voltage variation issues. Nevertheless, electricity has become one of the fundaments needs of modern-day life.

In many parts of Jammu & Kashmir, distribution infrastructure is in poor condition (including the towns and cities) leading to low voltage and supply failure. Regular load shedding is being carried out in the villages and also in suburbs, though unplanned outages are common. Wooden electric poles are commonly found which were used even for HT network which often gets damaged during winter and due to wind.

"Electricity availability is as low as less than 6 hours a day."

        Aseem hence has planned to implement the concept of Micro-Solar Grid project which aims to provide village based Off-grid Electricity Distribution System which will be helpful in case of power cut at village which is common phenomenon in remote villages of Jammu-Kashmir.

Operational Framework

Community participation is very important for the sustainability and the successful operation of the system. Village youths will be trained (depending upon the system size and requirement) and employed to maintain the system. However, major technical issues shall be reported to the installer/developer which is also the responsibility of the operator.

Requirements at Village

1. Area for installation: 3*2 Sq meters plain surface area (preferable roof top of some house with good exposure to sunlight)
2. Vicinity of houses within diameter of 100 meters from the point of installation.
3. Preferably a small village/settlement with 10-20 houses so as to make installations and monitoring easy.