Enabling Energy Entrepreneurship and Adaptation
The IDES program is a one-of-a-kind women entrepreneur driven microgrid initiative combined with clean cooking. It utilizes renewable energy sources to provide reliable power to families for immediate needs and long-term environmental sustainability by combining clean cooking, LED lighting, and mobile charging into a single system, addressing complex energy needs.
India
Project Location: Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh & West Bengal, India
Standard: Gold Standard
Systems Deployed: 25,800
Women Self-Help Group Members: 3500
Future Project Expansion: 80,000
IDES is an energy innovation that presents a one-stop solution in rural parts of India which are grappling with adverse effects of climate change. With solar PV modules, charge controllers, batteries, solar power-assisted cookstoves, and luminaires for lighting, IDES allows consistency in households’ energy use for cooking, lighting, and device charging; it addresses crucial issues of disaster resilience, women’s health and energy access.
These forced draft cookstoves have a fan integrated into the cookstove which runs on the solar power produced by the IDES panel, which effectively minimizes the exposure to Household Air Pollution (HAP) for the women and girl child of the household. These households provide for very tiny spaces for cooking and the reduced smoke is crucial for household health.
The program incorporates financial innovation within a demand-side market approach. Households must cover 65% of the IDES system’s cost, with 25% financed through community-led women’s self-help groups (SHGs) and the remaining 40% by the manufacturer via a mainstream debt line. This debt is repaid through carbon credit sales. Thousands of women in socially sensitive zones of northern India are essential to the program’s success, acting as sellers, financiers, and users of the system. Many also work as technicians, enhancing their roles as energy entrepreneurs and significantly contributing to gender inclusion and income generation in their communities.
The Solar component of this system enables far flung rural populations to have access to cutting edge solar technology including storage. This unique system is important for communities who live in these project areas as these people are subjected to the most severe floods at least once every year. A portable clean energy device is essential for the survival of such periodically displaced populations. Also the solar energy with storage helps households access lighting and mobile charging throughout the day.
The program areas get flooded each year without fail, and the IDES serves as a great example of a clean energy device coming to the fore on disaster relief. These populations are displaced to flood relief camps, where there is hardly any access to any energy source. Now with the IDES, a boxed energy system, these households can carry their energy infrastructure with them, which helps immensely with disaster relief logistics, as functional mobile phones can be very useful for such relief coordination in camps.
A multi-stakeholder approach to energy access, technology innovation and knowledge management. This program involves local government subsidies, philanthropy capital, microfinance, SHG microloaning and mainstream banking to achieve the results that it does–a true example of partnerships for goals.
These forced draft cookstoves have a fan integrated into the cookstove which runs on the solar power produced by the IDES panel, which effectively minimizes the exposure to Household Air Pollution (HAP) for the women and girl child of the household. These households provide for very tiny spaces for cooking and the reduced smoke is crucial for household health.
The program incorporates financial innovation within a demand-side market approach. Households must cover 65% of the IDES system’s cost, with 25% financed through community-led women’s self-help groups (SHGs) and the remaining 40% by the manufacturer via a mainstream debt line. This debt is repaid through carbon credit sales. Thousands of women in socially sensitive zones of northern India are essential to the program’s success, acting as sellers, financiers, and users of the system. Many also serve as technicians, enhancing their roles as energy entrepreneurs and significantly contributing to gender inclusion and income generation in their communities.
The Solar component of this system enables far flung rural populations to have access to cutting edge solar technology including storage. This unique system is important for communities who live in these project areas , as these people are subjected to the most severe floods at least once every year. A portable clean energy device is essential for the survival of such periodically displaced populations. Also the solar energy with storage helps households access lighting and mobile charging throughout the day.
The program areas get flooded each year without fail, and the IDES serves as a great example of a clean energy device coming to the fore on disaster relief. These populations are displaced to flood relief camps, where there is hardly any access to any energy source. Now with the IDES, a boxed energy system, these households can carry their energy infrastructure with them, which helps immensely with disaster relief logistics, as functional mobile phones can be very useful for such relief coordination in camps.
A multi-stakeholder approach to energy access, technology innovation and knowledge management. This program involves local government subsidies, philanthropy capital, microfinance, SHG microloaning and mainstream banking to achieve the results that it does–a true example of partnerships for goals.
Resident
Purnea, Bihar, India
