In rural India, decentralised renewable energy options – primarily solar power – are creating livelihood and business opportunities. Decentralised renewable energy systems are primarily independent of the central power grid, and the energy is generated close to its area of use. To address daily issues that arise out of lack of power, startups and organisations are creating and modifying decentralised renewable energy (DRE) solutions in India’s villages, burgeoning towns and metros.
Mongabay-India has reported on the success stories of DRE, such as the case study of a sugarcane farmer from the Karaknalli village of the Bidar district of Karnataka, installing a solar fencing machine to protect the sugarcane crop from wild boar; and also about the challenges in DRE while investigating why Dharnai village in Bihar, promoted as the first solar village of the state, went defunct.
In this episode of GigaWhat, Mongabay-India Contributing Editor and the podcast host, Mayank Aggarwal, speaks with startup founders and managers to learn the innovations happening in the DRE sector that are helping to boost the livelihoods of people in India’s hinterlands.
Manish Kumar (Staff Reporter, Mongabay-India), Ananth Aravamudan (Powering Livelihoods), Kunal Vaid (Director, Resham Sutra) and Abhishek Pathak (Founder, Greenwear) discuss the need to bring innovative DRE solutions to the market and highlight the positive impacts of the DRE ecosystem and the innovative solutions by startups, on the rural economy and livelihoods.
