Headline, June18, 2013

'''LIGHTIN​G UP THE -POOR- OF THE

 WORLD'''

Let me give it to you straight : Around 1.6 billion people, or more than a fifth of the world's population, have no access to electricity and a billion more have only an unreliable and intermittent supply. Of the people without electricity 85% live up in rural areas or on the fringes of the cities.

Extending energy grids into these areas is expensive : the United Nation estimates that an average of $ 35 billion to 40 billion a year needs to be invested until 2030 so everybody on the planet can cook, heat and light their premises, and have energy for productive uses like education, schools.

On current trends, however, the number of ''energy poor'' people will barely budge, and over 23% of the world's population will still have no electricity by 2030, according to the experts at International Energy Agency. What then should the world do?

But why wait for top-down solutions? Providing energy in a bottom-up way instead has a lot to recommend it. There is no need to wait for politicians or utilities to act. The technology in question, from solar panels to low-energy light emitting diodes, is rapidly falling in price. Local, bottom-up systems may be more sustainable and produce fewer carbon emissions than centralised schemes.

In the rich world, in fact, the trend is toward a more flexible system of distributed, sustainable power sources. The developing world has an opportunity to leapfrog the centralised model, just as it leapfrogged fixed line telecoms and went straight to Mobile Phones. But just as the spread of mobile phones was helped along by new business models, such as pre-paid airtime cards and village ''telephone ladies'', new approaches are now needed.

''We need to reinvent how energy is delivered,'' said Simon Desjardins, who manages a programme at the Shell Foundation that invests in for profit ways to deliver energy to the poor. ''Companies need to come up with innovative business models and technology.'' Fortunately lots of great people are doing just that.

Start with lighting, which prompted the establishment of the first electrical utilities in the rich world. At the ''Lighting Africa'' conference, some years ago,  -A World Bank project to encourage private-sector solutions for the poor, 50 lighting firms displayed their ware. This clearly illustrates both the growing interest in bottom-up solutions and hopefully, falling prices.

Prices of solar cells have also developed a propensity to come down, so that the cost per kilowatt is half of what it was a decade ago. Solar cells can be used to power low energy LEDs, which are both energy efficient and cheap: the cost of a set LEDS to light a home has fallen by half in the past decade.

''This could eliminate Kerosene lighting in the next 10 years, the way the cell phones took off in about 13 years,'' says Richenda Van Leeuwen of the Energy Access Initiative at the UN Foundation. That would have a number of benefits: families in the developing world may spend as much as 30% of their income on Kerosene, and Kerosene lighting causes indoor fires and air pollution.

But such systems are still beyond the reach of the very poorest. ''There are hundreds of millions who can afford clean energy, But there is still a barrier for the Billions who cannot,'' said one CEO. His firm, D.light, has has developed a range of solar-powered systems that can provide up to 12 hours of light after charging in sunlight for one day. D.Light's most basic solar lantern costs around $10. Bur the price would have to fall below $5 to make it universally acceptable and affordable. So there is a scope for further improvement.

It is just not New Technology that is needed, but new models. Much of the ferment in bottom-up energy entrepreneuralism is focusing on South Asia, where -570 Million- people in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, mostly in rural areas, have no access to electricity according to the International Energy Agency. One idea is to use locally available ''biomass'' to generate power for a village level ''micro-grid''.

With respectful and mourned dedication to all the Medical Students of Bolan University, Balochistan, Pakistan, who lost their lives. And to all those who perished to eternity.

The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless hereby Honors their name with posthumous provisional registrations. 

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless