This report, in collaboration with the SELCO Foundation and supported by the Good Energies Foundation, analyses the financiers’ perspective in lending for solar-powered livelihood appliances in India. It generates evidence on the impact of solar-powered productive-use technologies on the net incomes of end-users and their loan repayments.

Despite extremely high exposure to indoor air pollution from biomass burning, 63 per cent of rural households continue to use firewood, dung cakes and agricultural residue as the primary fuel for cooking finds this new report released by CEEW.

Ninety-two per cent of the electricity-deprived population of India lives in rural areas. Farm power availability is a third of that of China. More than four million rural micro-enterprises in India mention lack of reliable electricity as a major bottleneck to their business.

Access to daily hours of grid electricity is strongly associated with people’s subjective satisfaction with power supply. But users of off-grid solar power are less sensitive to the number of hours available.

The report attempts to bridge the knowledge gap through the analysis of 1600 farmers’ interviews, and 10 focused group discussions with farmers. The study is focused on Uttar Pradesh, the state with the largest population of farmers in the country.

Solar pumps could improve access to sustainable irrigation for farmers in India. The central government is committed to supporting solar pumps through capital subsidy schemes.

Solar-powered irrigation systems (SPIS) offer significant opportunities to facilitate irrigation access in an environmentally-sustainable manner. In India, with a substantial government support in form of capital subsidies, over 100,000 solar pumps had been installed by December 2016.

According to data from GARV2, 37 per cent of households in Odisha are unelectrified, even as over 98 per cent of villages in the state have been electrified.

This briefing paper reports on the largest energy access survey ever conducted in India, covering a representative sample of the rural poor across six states with interviews in 8,566 households.

In India, only 46 per cent of the cultivated land is irrigated. With more than 19 million agriculture electricity connections, irrigation accounts for more than a fifth of the country’s total power sales.