Taking Solar Energy to Remote Villages: Barefoot College Shows The Way

While renewable energy was always considered more desirable from the point of view of environment protection, its importance has increased several times in these times of climate change. Solar energy is particularly seen as a very promising source in energy planning for the future in tropical countries like India. Interest in realising the potential of solar energy is fast increasing and organisations which have been pioneers in solar energy are attracting a lot of well-deserved attention.

In this context the experience of the Barefoot College (also known as the Social Work and Research Centre) is of great relevance as it has been a pioneer in several aspects of solar energy.

The Barefoot College’s main campus is in Tilonia (Ajmer district, Rajasthan) but it has sub-centres and affiliated organisations in several parts of the State and country. However, its solar energy work has spread much beyond this to three continents.

One important aspect of the Barefoot College’s work is the wide range of applications for which solar energy has been used. Another, perhaps even more important, aspect is the remarkable success in using the hidden skills and creativity of less educated (or even illiterate) villagers so that after about six months of training they emerge as barefoot solar engineers and technicians. On the job learning, of course, continues. It is these barefoot engineers trained at the Barefoot College who have lighted up villages using solar energy not only in the remote villages of Ladakh, Barmer and Sikkim in India but also in Bhutan, Afghanistan and about 20 countries of Africa.

At the Tilonia campus 45 kilowatt of solar modules with five battery banks provide power for 500 lights, several fans, a photocopying machine, more than 30 computers and printers, a pump set, a small telephone exchange and a milk booth with freezers. The installation of all these modules and applications were carried out by ‘barefoot solar engineers’ with a maximum school education of class ten. According to data available with the Barefoot College, nearly 200,000 people were provided with clean energy and light in 16 States of India and 17 other developing countries. It has been estimated that in the process over 1.25 million tonnes of carbon emissions have been avoided.

Installing solar energy systems in villages of Ladakh was a particularly challenging but equally rewarding task. The extremely remote and cold villages needed electricity badly but in reality had only kerosene lamps to light their homes. The SWRC took up the challenging task of taking solar energy to these villages with the help of local youths who were to be selected by local communities and then trained by the SWRC as barefoot solar engineers. This effort started in 1989. Today several barefoot engineers take responsibilities for extremely remote villages. Twentyeight-year old Tse Wang Norbu, for example, has installed over 59 units. Thondup Dorze cares for 50 units he helped to install in 1992. Today there is a demand from more and more village communities for solar electricity. They are even willing to raise funds for providing modest salaries to barefoot solar engineers and for the purchase of some spare parts and batteries.

A joint project of the SWRC and UNDP took solar electricity to more inaccessible villages in six States—Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Assam, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh—on a somewhat similar pattern. This project was linked to saving fuel wood and other environmental benefits, specially by encouraging the production and use of solar heaters.

A special effort has been to provide solar lanterns to night schools. All the night schools run by the SWRC have been provided these solar lanterns.

The piped water supply system established in village Panwa in Ajmer district was also activated by solar energised pumpset. This pumpset draws water from a well (more than 150 feet deep) and fills up a water tank having a capacity of 80,000 litres. This solar energised pumpset has the capacity to provide 70,000 litres of drinking water. Such efforts open up the doors for experimenting with new applications of solar energy.

The Women Barefoot Solar Cooker Engineers’ Society based in Tilonia is a registered association of rural women who complete the full fabrication and production of parabolic solar cookers. This cooker can do the most environmental-friendly, cost-effective, daytime cooking on sunny days The in-built spring and clock system is accurately set to complete one rotation in fixed time, and this in turn rotates the cooker to track the sun automatically, making the sunlight fall on all the 300 (9cm x 12cm) reflectors throughout the day. So once the cooker has been adjusted in the morning, uninterrupted cooking can be carried out the rest of the day. At Tilonia workshops, cookers are fabricated using precise measurements by bending, welding and cutting. Parabolic solar cookers of 2.5 sq.m. have been installed in nine villages and some institutions.

Recently I met some of the barefoot engineers of this society, including Seeta, Shahnaz, Shyama and Kamla, in Tilonia. They explained the working of the solar parabolic cooker installed in Tilonia in detail, including the working of the clock and the precise measurments needed to ensure that the cooker is able to track the sun. It is indeed remarkable that rural women with little formal education have not only learnt this work but also travelled to other places to install the system successfully. They are determined to make a success of it and are keenly looking for more orders.

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I also spoke to women trainees from six African countries including Chad, Sierre Leone, Zambia, Nambia, Kenya and Tanzania. Most of them were grandmothers who are committed to lighting up their remote villages using solar energy. They have come to Tilonia under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme of the External Affairs Ministry. Training of several previous batches has been completed and they have returned to their countries with the necessary equipments to install the solar lighting system and maintain them.

When I spoke to some of the trainees (only very few spoke English) like Susana (from Nambia) and Monica (from Tanzania), I was pleasantly surprised at the progress they made in a few months and the confidence which their training had given them, despite problems like the language barrier.

Trainers from Tilonia, like Leela and Magan Kanwar, had obviously found innovative ways of overcoming the language problem. With little formal education, they themselves had been scared initially when they first took up solar training. But after a few years of training and on-the-job learning, including installation of solar systems, they were probably the most appropriate teachers as they could understand and overcome the initial difficulties and fears of the trainees.

With the help of such training, the solar energy programe of the Barefoot College/SWRC has travelled far and wide. In several States of India and in 20 other countries spread over three continents (the most heavy concentration is in Africa), during the last 24 years, over 16,000 fixed units, 9500 solar lanterns, 70 water heaters and 60 parabolic cookers have been fabricated and installed in 770 villages, while 480 barefoot solar engineers have been trained, almost half of them women.

In the various villages where solar energy systems are installed, Village Environment Energy Committees are formed; these prepare the comm-unity to take responsibility and ownership of solar units. Special emphasis is given to selecting the poorest women (generally in the 35-60 age group) with leadership qualities and a commitment to work for their villages, for training as barefoot solar engineers. Villages are selected on the basis that these are inaccessible, remote and non-electrified. At the village committee discussions are held for assuming responsibilities and for the establishment/management of a fee collection system to cover management, maintenance and repairs of units. The village generally donates a building for a rural electronic workshop to be set up there.

Barefoot solar engineers are provided a six-month training about the fabrication of charge controllers and inverters, core winding, printed circuit boards, testing, wiring, installation of solar panels and repair and maintenance etc.

In their villages they are paid through a stipend consisting of 60 per cent of the community’s contribution for the solar system.

As Susana from Nambia says, “I’ll go back to my village, light up my village and maintain the system. This will help my fellow-villagers and give me great satisfaction.†A few doors away, packers are quietly packing the equipments that will be sent by ship to the villages of Susana and other trainees and will probably reach their villages even before they return.

The author is currently a Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.