Environmental  Sustainability through Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and school infrastructure improvement at Induri, Maharashtra

Project Background:

India’s power sector has been dealing with several issues due to the well-known urban–rural divide in the country. Primarily, among these is the wide demand supply gap. According to the Census of India (2011), 69% of the population is rural and more than two thirds (68%) of all households are living in the rural areas. India’s energy crisis is defined by the fact that the major share of its rural population is energy poor. Energy poverty, indicated by the lack of access to modern energy services, is a direct outcome of income poverty. The poor cannot afford to pay for the services of the modern energy carriers, and they live in sub-standard buildings/ houses, which are unfit to be connected to the modern energy systems. The urban–rural divide in developing countries is reinforced by unequal distribution of resources and amenities. Energy as a resource and electricity as an amenity are no exceptions. In this context, rapid growth in demand for renewable energy generation has been spurred by concerns such as energy security, fuel diversity and climate change.

While a majority of the world’s current electricity supply is generated from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, these traditional energy sources face a number of challenges including rising prices, security concerns, over dependence on imports from a limited number of countries which have significant fossil fuel supplies, and growing environmental concerns over the climate change risks associated with power generation using fossil fuels.

As a result of these and other challenges facing traditional energy sources, governments, businesses and consumers are increasingly supporting the development of alternative energy sources and new technologies for electricity generation. Renewable energy sources such as solar, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric and wind power generation have emerged as potential alternatives which address some of these concerns. As opposed to fossil fuels, which draw on finite resources that may eventually become too expensive to retrieve, renewable energy sources are generally unlimited in availability. Solar power generation has emerged as one of the most rapidly growing renewable sources of electricity. Solar power generation has several advantages over other forms of electricity generation Thus, electricity generation from the alternative sources has become the crying need for any use of energy consumption and therefore this project considers taking proactive steps in promoting the green energy solutions in Pune district of Maharashtra as a part of its CSR program. The district Pune is blessed with renewable energy resources like water, solar and wind; the abundant of solar makes it more promising one for use of energy consumption since the percentage of possible sunshine in this area is more than 60 percent throughout the year. As a pilot initiative in this line, it is proposed to install Solar PV system at village Induri to support the existing drinking water supply scheme which is operated through conventional energy.

Project Objectives:

• Promote the use of sustainable, economic and least-cost decentralized green energy solutions in partnership with the local government department
• Provide alternate energy system for the water pumping system for the village Induri to minimize/reduce dependency on the brown energy
• Building skills among the local GPs for effective management of Solar PV system and its promotion
• Promote renewable energy and giving ecofriendly solution to energy needs through installation of solar streetlights.
• Beautification of school premises by fixing paver blocks in the ground