Promoting solar energy by spreading awareness, training people and demonstrating technologies

Energy Scenario

Consumption of energy from fossil fuels in the form of coal, petrochemicals and natural gas has played very important role in the development of mankind. Due to which, over the centuries, Energy has become an indispensable part of everyday human life. It is well known now that fossil fuel based energy sources are available in limited quantity. With the present rate of consumption, we will exhaust all the resources within 50 to 100 years. This will be a dangerous situation for our planet.

It is clear and well observed fact that the development of a given region or country directly depend on the amount of energy consumption. Countries, where per capita energy consumption is higher, are at the higher stage of social and economical development. Higher energy consumption not only improves the living standard and comfort level of individual but also results in higher literacy rates and better health.

Unfortunately, energy consumption pattern is not uniform across the globe. It varies from country to country and region to region. Usually per capita energy consumption is higher in the western countries and lower in the eastern countries. For instance, per capita energy consumption of USA is over 4500 kWh/year while for India it is only about 650 kWh/year. In the East, energy consumption rate varies within the country as well. Usually energy consumption in urban area is more as compared to rural areas. There are still many villages in India where fossil fuel based energy consumption is zero. Due to such discrepancy in the consumption pattern, there is marked difference in the development of human pockets of those who are living in the urban area and those who are living in rural areas. The difference in the development can be observed in all spheres of life, let it be education, health, social, economic development and so on.

There is a need to alleviate disparity in the energy consumption pattern in rural and urban area so that the living standard and literacy situation of rural areas can be improved. The increase in rural energy consumption should not alone be obtained by increasing the consumption of fossil fuel based energy. Because, consumption of fossil fuel based energy has now reached to a level where we started to affect our environment to an extent wherein our activities are becoming threat for sustainable existence of life on earth. For this reason, use of non-conventional energy resources such as solar photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, wind energy, biomass energy should be preferred for the cause of rural development over conventional energy sources such as coal, crude oil and natural gas. Non-conventional energy resources are renewable in nature unlike conventional energy sources. Non-conventional energy resources are harmless for the environment and should be essential part of our energy consumption portfolio for sustainable existence. Renewable energy sources (RES) are not concentrated in a given area but available over a large part of earth. This provides an opportunity for everybody to harness RES according to their needs. Widespread availability of RES also provides employment opportunity for many people, for instance harnessing of renewable energy sources such as biomass energy requires significant amount of manpower.

Large proportion of rural population is illiterate. Many people even do not have idea of the very term 'energy'. What it is? From where it comes? What are the implications of the energy use in the way they do? etc. Therefore it is of utmost importance to make people aware of the concept 'energy'. Proper education of the conventional and non-conventional energy sources is required.

Energy that can be obtained from renewable energy sources are usually more expensive than that of grid power that we mostly use in today's world. The limited use of RES, whatever is present today, is mainly due to the government's promotional program. Continuation of the promotional program is need of today, mainly in rural sector due to inferior economic condition of villagers. Though energy from RES is expensive today but the price is expected to fall in future and become more and more comparable with energy from conventional energy sources since significant efforts are underway worldwide for research and development in this field.

Based on the discussion presented in the above paragraphs, a need is felt to create an organization which can promote rural development through increased energy consumption mainly of renewable type, increased awareness, training and education. The whole process of transforming an energy-poor rural scenario to energy-rich rural scenario will require tremendous amount of efforts both from individuals and from the government.

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