Workshop on Mini-Grid Development for Livelihood Generation Opportunities

TERI organised a 'Workshop on Mini-Grid Development for Livelihood Generation Opportunities' on 3 January 2014 at the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB). This workshop, the 4th annual workshop of the multi-partner OASYS South Asia project, brought together experts and stakeholders to share successful models of providing electricity access and discuss issues and challenges of providing electricity access at affordable prices for livelihood development in the rural areas. The workshop saw active participation of over 50 stakeholders from the government, NGOs, regulatory bodies, research institutions and the private sector. Funded by DFID and Research Councils UK, the OASYS project aims towards investigating a suite of alternative decentralized business solutions and corresponding institutional frameworks for electricity and rural energy supply with a specific focus on South Asia.

Prof. (Dr) Subhes Bhattacharyya from De Montfort University and Lead Project Investigator of the OASYS South Asia project presented the research objectives and outputs achieved under the project to begin the proceedings. The inaugural address was delivered by Shri B C Jena, Chairman, Central Electricity Supply Utility of Odisha. Mr Jena is his address stressed on the importance of mini-grid to electrify off-grid areas in the state of Odisha, which incidentally has one of the highest numbers of un-electrified villages in India. Thereafter, presentations on different models for implementation of rural mini grids were made by TERI, Mera Gaon Power, Mlinda Foundation and Grassroots and Rural Innovative Development in the session on Experiences & Lessons from Green Mini-grids.

During the post lunch session, participants took part in two break-away group discussions on Energizing livelihoods: challenges and opportunities and Institutional & operational challenges in implementation of decentralized electricity solutions. The workshop ended with a panel discussion on Scaling up green mini-grid projects in India, moderated by Mr Amit Kumar, Director, TERI. The panel discussion included a special address by Shri. B K Mishra, Member (Technical), Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission Mr Mishra in his address stressed on the need for tariff parity for grid and off-grid projects and some possible ways to achieve the same. Other panellist who also forwarded their views included Mr Ashok Choudhury, Deputy Director, Orissa Renewable Energy Development Agency; Prof (Dr) Haribandhu Panda, Pro Vice Chancellor, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Mr Chris Neidl, Country Manager, Arc Finance and Mr Piyush Jaju, Director, Punam Energy Pvt. Ltd. The concluding remarks were delivered by Dr. Subhes Bhattacharyya wherein he highlighted the different ways of scaling up of projects and expressed that the demonstration project(s) being implemented by OASYS project partners in different states of India will generate new knowledge and can help in developing viable off-grid delivery models for enhancing electricity access in South Asia.