Workshop on Sustainable Energy for All: Exploring how Bottom-up Experiences can influence the Policy Discourse
Access to sustainable energy remains an important subject as per the discussions taking place at the international level. Almost 1.3 billion people across the globe still do not have access to electricity and probably an equal number have access to unreliable and unaffordable supply of electricity, which is also not sustainable. A workshop titled 'Sustainable Energy for All: Exploring How Bottom-up Experiences Can Influence the Policy Discourse' was held to bring together the actors involved in the implementation of off-grid systems, academia, and policy makers to brainstorm and discuss learnings from the field that contribute to the national and international policy discourses. The workshop, held on July 31, 2014 in Kolkata, was organized under the OASYS South Asia project, supported by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, United Kingdom (UK) and Department for International Development (DFID). The project seeks to investigate a suite of alternative decentralized business solutions and corresponding institutional frameworks for electricity and rural energy supply with a specific focus on South Asia.
The workshop attracted 40 participants from government agencies, private sector, project implementers, academia, and policy advocacy agencies. The event started with a welcome address by Mr Debajit Palit, Associate Director, TERI. It was followed by a presentation on the 'OASYS Project: Experiences and Lessons' by Prof Dr Subhes C Bhattacharyya from De Montfort University, UK, who is also the Principal Investigator of the project. The presentation highlighted the various research and demonstration activities that have been undertaken as part of the OASYS project and the lessons learned through different business models implemented in different sites with different partners.
The keynote address was delivered by Dr Leena Srivastava, Vice Chancellor, TERI University. She spoke about the genesis, vision, and mission of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative launched by the United Nations to bring universal access to energy by the year 2030. She also spoke on the importance of training and capacity building for achieving the goal of sustainable energy. She stated that TERI University had been designated as the capacity building hub under the SE4All initiative and will be involved in leading the work on capacity building as part of the initiative.
The first technical session was held on 'Rural Electricity Access Programme: Experiences and Lessons', where different organizations shared their experiences from the field. The session started with a presentation by Mr Sanjoy Sanyal, Country Director, New Ventures India, who presented the views on 'Lessons from private sector led off-grid models'. This was followed by another presentation by Mr K Rahul Sharma from TERI on 'Experiences from OASYS South Asia demonstration project'. The last presentation in the session was given by Mr Manish Kumar Pandey from TERI and Ms Archana Tiwari from Bihar Jeevika Programme. They shared the experiences of implementing solar home systems in Bihar and how the programme is now being scaled up and targeted to cover 100,000 households. The presentations gave insights into the difficulties faced by implementers, both in terms of technology and social issues. The session was very interactive and the speakers addressed various queries that were put forth by the participants.
Post lunch, the event was scheduled for a dynamic breakout session to crowd source ideas, where the participants were divided into three groups to discuss topics significant to the field of off-grid energy. The topics included 'Innovations in technical designs (AC vs DC grid)', 'Innovations in delivery model: How to cope with growing energy demand', and 'Electricity access, livelihoods and poverty escape'. All three topics were discussed in detail by the respective groups and the group coordinator thereafter presented the key points from the discussion in the plenary.
The workshop concluded with the panel discussion on 'Learnings from the field: Contributing to policy discourse', moderated by Dr Bhattacharyya. The panelists included representatives from Mlinda Foundation, Onergy, Tezpur University, Tripura Renewable Energy Development Agencies, Sambodhi Research, and Rashtriya Gram Vikas Nidhi. The discussion ended with various essential points, which could impact the policies in the field of off-grid energy. The session concluded with closing remarks by Dr Bhattacharyya, who summed up the day's proceedings.