Dr. Keya GhoshCentre Head

CUTS Calcutta Resource Centre

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Demand side management and Renewable Energy In India: Capacity Building of CSOs

(DREC project in West Bengal)

Mid Term Review Meeting

06th January, 2012

Outline

• Overall Objective of the Project

• Activities Completed

• Major Findings of the Baseline Survey in West Bengal– Methodology– Findings from Analysis

• Way Forward

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Objectives of the DREC project• Overall Objective –

To increase long-term capacity/awareness of consumer groups to demand for DSM and RE initiatives, and also to understand, document and communicate their specific needs to relevant policy makers.

• Specific Objectives

– To gauge the level of awareness among various stakeholders on RE and DSM

– To understand consumers’ willingness to pay for RE

– To understand the various roadblocks to effective implementation of initiatives pertaining to RE and DSM

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Activities completed • Local Inception Workshop in Kolkata

• Reference Group (RG) for West Bengal

• Identification of Districts in consultation with the RG

• Identification of local partners in the selected districts

• Baseline Survey for West Bengal

– Developing questionnaire in consultation with C-CIER and its translation – Finalising sample for the Baseline survey in consultation with RG and C-CIER– Training of Surveyors to do field survey with mock sessions– Provide hands on training in the field to the surveyors on how to administer the

questionnaire to various stakeholders– Conducting Focussed Group Discussion – farmers, off grid consumers and local decision

makers– Data entry and Tabulation– Data Analysis

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Methodology -

• Total Sample Size – 513– Household – 210– Agriculture – 56– Industrial (SME) – 37– Government Institutions - 53– Commercial and Private Institutions – 70– NGO/CSO - 87

• Number of Districts – 4– South 24 Parganas (The Sunderbans area) - 204– Cooch Behar - 106– Nadia - 103– East Midnapore - 100

Baseline Survey for West Bengal

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Baseline Survey for West Bengal

Methodology –

• Criteria for Choosing Districts – – Sunderbans (South 24 Parganas) ---- where RE initiatives have been undertaken – Cooch Behar --- isolated islands -----virgin territory for RE initiative– Nadia & East Midnapore ---- Grid Connected----higher relevance of DSM

• Details – 4 districts – 10 territories (Blocks)--- 2 in each district; but in Sunderbans 4 blocks – 1 CSOs from each territory – 10 CSOs– 50 respondents in each territory --- 50x100= 500 responsdents

• From each of the territories both Urban and Rural areas were surveyed

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Some Basic Information on Sample Composition

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Interpretation• 70% of the respondents were from rural areas and 30% from Urban areas.

• Out of the total respondents 23% (120 respondents) were using RE in off-grid areas.

• 73% of the respondents were Grid Connected Consumers

• 4% of the respondents were unelectrified consumers

• 62% of the total sample were having an income between 20,000 – 1,00,000 and were educated upto High School or beyond

• 23% of the sample had an income of Rs1,00,000-5,00,000 and were highly qualified

• The remaining 15% of the respondents have income below 20,000 or Uneducated

THE SURVEY TRIED TO CAPTURE THE PERCEPTIONS OF DIFFERENT INCOME GROUPS AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONSUMERS - GRID CONNECTED, OFF GRID AND UNELECTRIFIED

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Major Findings of the Baseline Survey

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Perception on Climate Change / Global Warming

• 91% of the respondents are aware about Climate Change / Global Warming

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AWARENESS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE AMONG VARIOUS STAKEHOLDERS

HOUSEHOLD (HH)

AGRICULTURAL (AG)

INDUSTRIAL (IND)

GOVERNMENT INSTITUTION

(GI)

COMMERCIAL (COMM)

NGO / CSO PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL (% OF TOTAL)

90% 93% 81% 98% 87% 94% 91%

• Majority (64%) of the stakeholders believe that Climate Change is the most important issue compared to other contemporary issues. 82% of the CSOs are of the same opinion followed by Government Institutions (75%)

CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE

HOUSEHOLD (HH)

AGRICULTURAL (AG)

INDUSTRIAL (IND)

GOVERNMENT INSTITUTION

(GI)

COMMERCIAL (COMM)

NGO / CSO PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL (% OF TOTAL)

60% 55% 46% 75% 64% 82% 64%

• Rainfall Pattern, Agriculture and Health will be severely affected by Climate Change. 32% feel that all areas will be affected

Perception on Renewable Energy• 92% of the respondents are aware about the various renewable energy sources.

• On an average while urban respondents are more aware about Solar, Hydro and Wind sources, rural respondents were also aware about biomass and biogas sources

AWARENESS ABOUT VARIOUS RE SOURCES

SOLAR WIND BIOMASS BIOGAS HYDRO TIDAL

26% 18% 10% 17% 23% 6%

URBAN RESPONDENTS

100% 63% 24% 56% 84% 14%

RURAL RESPONDENTS

98% 66% 44% 65% 87% 24%

Perception on Cost of RE

•Surprisingly 39% of the respondents felt that the cost of RE was low, which contradicts the general perception

•Out of the total off-grid consumers, majority (64%) felt the cost to be low

•25% of total respondents feel the cost to be very high out of which 43% are unelectrified. Which means the untapped market’s wrong perception needs to be changed

•Out of this 25%, 45% of the respondents feel that government should provide more subsidy to bring down the cost of RE.

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Willingness to Pay

• 79% of the respondents are will pay extra for using clean energy but not beyond 5-10%.

• The pattern shows that from the income category of 75,000 – 1,00,000 the willingness to pay increases proportionately with income group

Awareness and Usage of RE Equipments by HOUSEHOLDS

• 62% of the respondents were aware of equipments run on RE. Interestingly the level of awareness was found to be higher for rural areas (66%) rather than for urban areas (53%).

AWARENESS OF HOUSEHOLDS

AWARE NOT AWARE

62% 38%

OUT OF THE TOTAL URBAN POPULATION

53% 47%

OUT OF TOTAL RURAL POPULATION

66% 34%

USAGE OF RE EQUIPMENTS

USING NOT USING

27% 73%

URBAN

6% of the users 94%

RURAL

94% of the users 6%

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Reasons for Not Using RE Equipments by HOUSEHOLDS

• 66% of the non users (households) told that initial investment is high

• Out of the households who are aware of the solar equipments, 89% of the respondents are willing to install it if provided appropriate financial assistance from local banks

• 17% of the non-users told that the post sales service of the RE equipments is not reliable

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Problems Facing RE users in West Bengal

• 47% of the respondents told that there are no service centres nearby their villages. For Nadia 75% of the RE users had reported this problem.

• In case of South 24 Pargana respondents told that on an average 3 month is required to repair any fault in the RE equipments

• The perception of 78% of the offgrid consumers was that Heavy Electrical Appliances like Fridge cannot be run on RE and they would shift to conventional grid connectivity. This made some offgrid solar consumers shift to grid connected conventional electricity in Nadia.

In one of the unelectrified islands in Cooch Behar respondents were eager to install rooftop solar panels but could not do so. This is because some other residents in a nearby island had installed the same but those became defunct after 3 months and could not be repaired.

Demand Side Management

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Quality of Service

• 60% of the respondents face Voltage Fluctuation and Power Cut

• Interestingly, while 70% of the Grid Connected consumers have reported to have been suffering from Voltage Fluctuation and Power Cuts, 50% of the off-grid consumers told that they do not face voltage fluctuation

• 68% of the consumers had to use voltage stabilizers with an average price of Rs2,000. 21% of the consumers use Inverter and 11% use diesel generators

Judicious Use of Electricity

• 84% of the respondents believe that judicious use of electricity can help in reducing voltage fluctuation and power cut.

• Media has been the main source of information for all the stakeholders especially through small advertisements broadcasted over Television.

• 92% of the respondents believe that use of energy efficient products can help reduce electricity bill

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On Demand Side Management…….(contd.)

Awareness about Energy Efficient Products – HOUSEHOLDS

• 83% of the Households are using energy efficient products. However understanding about energy efficient electrical products is limited to use of CFL and Tubelights

• Only 38% of the households are aware of Star Label and/or BEE label. The rest 62% are not aware on how to identify energy efficient products. The level of awareness is lower for rural areas.

• Non availability of Energy Efficient Products and Lack of awareness about the benefits - two main reasons for not using energy efficient products.

Commercial Consumers

• 67% of the commercial consumers are not aware about BEE label.

• Awareness about BEE label is higher for urban (20%) rather than rural areas (6%)

• Out of the 33% of the commercial consumers who are aware about BEE label, 60% came to know through media, 38% from Electricity Distribution Company and 2% through BEE

• 62% of the commercial consumers are not aware about Energy Audit and the rest 38% never conducted Energy Audit

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Agricultural Community in West Bengal

• 72% of the farmers use irrigation pumpsets between 8 a.m. and afternoon

• Only 58% of the farmers are aware about lower tariff at night

• Inspite of knowing that tariff at night is lower than day, they are not using the pumpsets in the day time since – “that is the time when water should be given and not at night” as quoted by one of the respondents

• Only 1 farmer is using energy efficient pumpset (having a BEE label), though 36% are aware about energy efficient pumpsets.

• However the perception is very skewed. Farmers using diesel and Kerosene use Chinese pumpsets which consume less fuel. This is their concept of energy efficient pump and not with the BEE labeled pumps. The local shops, company advertisements and feedback from fellow farmers are promoting these pumpsets

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In West Bengal, agriculture sector is one of prime consumers of fossil fuel (Kerosene, Diesel) especially in areas where government is not giving permission to set up electrical pumpsets

Approximate calculation of the amount of diesel used in one season (3 months)

In the Radhanagar Gram Panchayat (Gosaba) there is 7,000 bigha (apprx) that is cultivated 3 times a year. Other than the monsoon season irrigation water is pumped and used in Boro (summer) season. A well to do farmer uses 100 liters of diesel/kerosene each bigha in one season. This means in the boro season 7,00,000 (apprx) liters of diesel/kerosene is burnt in one Gram Panchayat.

Solar Pumpset for Irrigation

• Though 73% of the respondents were aware about existence of Solar pump sets ,yet none was found to be using it.

• Majority of the Farmers expressed interest in solar pumpsets, yet they had the following questions –

o Will the solar pumps be able to give average performance of a 5 - 7.5 horse power pumpset?

o What will be the quality of its after sales service?

• According to the respondents 53% do not know where the solar pump sets are available

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Experience and Awareness among CSOs

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• 91% of the CSOs did not have any prior experience of working on issues pertaining to RE and DSM. 71% of the CSOs have cited Lack of funding, 28% have cited lack of capacity and 8% as lack of consumer interest as the reason for not working on these issues

• 87% of the CSOs are not aware about the existence of a regulatory body in the electricity sector.

• 76% of the CSOs are not aware about the Electricity Act, 2003 and the role and responsibility assigned to the CSOs

Two Case Studies in West Bengal

• Absence of a regulatory structure jeopardises the long term feasibility of RE initiatives – Gosaba and Moushani

• Innovative RE inititaives adopted by one of the local partners in Cooch Behar – distribution of hearing aid where the battery is charged through solar chargers

Way Forward

• Identifying the key areas and issues to focus on.

• Plan the training workshops based on the key issues identified

• Need Based sessions in the training workshops

• To make it West Bengal specific

• To understand the common problems and challenges faced by Gujarat and West Bengal chapters

• Equal emphasis on both RE and DSM

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Thank You

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• In South 24 Pargana, the 4 pockets (where RE initiatives had been undertaken) selected were predominantly rural. Hence the tilt in this district was towards rural respondents

• East Midnapore and Coochbehar had a balanced sample size

• In Nadia the Chapra territory is predominantly rural. Here the RE users had shifted to Grid Connection

On Climate Change / Global Warming

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General Perception and Awareness on Renewable Energy…….(contd.)

Majority of the respondents who said that RE is cheaper/costlier were talking about installation of Rooftop Solar Panels. The idea of Grid connected solar is not predominant among the respondents.

General Perception and Awareness on Renewable Energy…….(contd.)

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Awareness about Electrical Equipments using RE - Households

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Awareness about Electrical Equipments using RE - FARMERS

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DIFFERENT SOURCES OF RE USED AND THE VARIOUS PROBLEMS FACING THE RE USERS

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35The concept of energy conservation is limited to installation of CFL & TUBE

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Inspite of knowing that tariff at night is lower than day 50% is using the pumpsets in the day time since – “that is the time when water should be given and not at night”……one of the respondents

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Farmers understand energy efficiency only in terms of fuel use which is again dependent on the company’s advertisement and feedback from other farmers