The energy system design and the underlying considerations

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for the power consumed (Chaudhuri 2007). The following sections show how WBREDA, with Mr. Choudhury as a champion, designed their solar mini-grid model, through a range of detailed considerations on how to ensure smooth functioning, local ownership, effective collection of revenue and several other characteristics.

5.3.2. The electricity services provided

The project implementer found it possible to supply electricity for light fans, black and white TVs and a few other applications. Light, which was viewed as most important, could be provided for some hours every evening, five to six hours with optimal functioning of the power plants, starting from 6 hours pm WBREDA chose to have two main options for the households, businesses, offices or others who decided to subscribe to the power supply. They could have either three or five electricity points in the house, drawing different electricity loads²⁶ from the power plants, and pay different tariffs. The three points’ connection could be used for three lights, or in some cases for one or two lights and a table fan or a black and white TV.²⁷ Mobile phone charging was also introduced in some of the villages in later years of these projects. The five point connection enabled installation of three light points as well as sockets for a table fan and a black and white TV.²⁸ Other types of connections were also provided, as for example in Kaylapara village, for special types of customers. These customers included a video hall, a school and a public office.²⁹ The power supply was not meant for appliances that would require more electricity to run, such as large rice mills, big water pumps, husking machines, welding machines or electric stoves.

5.3.3. The technical design

The project implementer put much effort into developing the technical design for the solar mini-grids, in close cooperation with the companies that supplied equipment. One challenge was to adapt it to the salty, stormy conditions in the Sunderban Islands, and the first inverter became damaged by salt. The solar arrays varied in peak capacity between 25 and 110 kW, and each battery bank with batteries of the lead-acid type had an appropriate size for the solar arrays and the planned hours of supply. Depending on use characteristics and maintenance quality, the capacity of the batteries would diminish over their lifespan of 4-6 years, depending on usage pattern, until a new battery bank would be put in place. Inverters were installed for inverting the power from direct current (DC) generated from the solar panels, to alternating current (AC) delivered to the customers.

A feature of the local context, the dense settlement pattern, made it possible to connect many people although the spatial outreach of the mini-grids was limited. The radius

26 Electricity load means the amount of electricity drawn by a specific type of electricity consuming device. The load is measured in Watts (W). For example, a hot plate on an electric cooking stove typically draws around 500-2000 W.

27 The planned electricity load per customer for the three points connection was maximum 60 W in the initial phase of the projects, and up to 100 W in some of the later power plants.

28 The planned load for the five points connection was maximum 120 W in the initial phase of the projects, and in later power plants 150 W.

29 They drew from 75 to 300 W.

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of the electricity grid measured from the power plant to the end of each branch of the line in most cases was around two km, because a longer line would lead to a drop in voltage for customers at the outer parts of the lines, reducing the quality of the light or other services.³⁰ The electricity lines were single phase or three phase, low voltage distribution lines (240/400 Volt, depending on single or three phase), complying with the standard of conventional distribution grids in India.

It was important to dimension the power plants to suit with demand for electricity as will become clear below. The project implementers estimated the likely demand in the various villages, in terms of number of customers. They held information meetings and did surveys as part of their planning, and sometimes made lists of interested customers before deciding the dimensions of the systems. They followed standard governmental tender procedures, and purchased different kinds of equipment from different suppliers. Technical equipment was transported by boat, and people carried large and heavy batteries and solar panels ashore on the islands and sometimes transported them by bicycle vans for several kilometers. Although challenging, a key WBREDA official pointed out that this was one of the easier tasks in the project. Suppliers carried out the installation work under supervision from WBREDA, and local people contributed with manual work.

5.3.4. Financing of the technical equipment for the solar mini-grids

The project implementer managed to mobilize financing of the investment in technical equipment through grants from the MNRE and the West Bengal state government³¹ and a few other sources. Loans were sometimes taken from IREDA financed under a World Bank line of credit. Due to the long-standing work on solar PV in MNRE at the national level in India, the technology was already familiar to ministry officials. The new ideas from Mr.

Choudhuri in the 1990s were a next innovative and promising step, making solar PV provision into something larger than the solar home systems. There were only small variations in the financing sources used by WBREDA over the years. The funding from the state level was an important addition to the funding from the central government. The local Gram Panchayats provided land for the power plants through a leasing arrangement at low cost and in some cases land was also donated by individuals or by the village community.

Based on examples from 2001-2004, the total cost for each power plant (25 to 110 kW installed capacity) was from approximately 6.6 to 29 million Indian Rupees (115,000 to 510,000 Euro).³² The local grid itself would range from approximately 0.9 to 1.25 million Rupees (15,700 to 22,000 Euro).³³ This included the solar PV modules, foundation, module mounting structure, charge controllers, inverters, batteries, cables, wires, junction boxes, installation, commissioning and freight. The cost of the power plant building came in

30 The possible outreach of such power lines varies a little bit with the density of the connected households.

31 Department of Science and Technology and Non-conventional Energy Sources, Government of West Bengal.

32 The cost per kW installed capacity was around 265.000 Indian Rupees (approximately 3450 Euro).

33 The cost per km of line varied between 180.000 Rupees (2349 Eur) and 250.000 Rs (3263 Eur) in the Sunderban, for single phase lines. The total length of the lines in each mini-grid was up to around 5 km.

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addition. The costs for such power plants have gone down considerably since that time because of dropping prices of solar PV panels in the global market.

5.3.5. Local involvement, organizational arrangement

Participation at the local level, especially among village leaders was considered important by WBREDA to ensure support for the projects. They saw village politics as an important factor to take into account. Support from the local leaders could facilitate the implementation process and set up of the local organizational arrangement. Mr. Choudhuri explained that he, as a leader of WBREDA, met with the leaders in the villages, and informed them about the kinds of problems they would have to help him to solve in order to make the power supply possible. For instance they could help raising awareness and interest and thus a good customer base.

The initiative to build a power plant in a village sometimes came from WBREDA, especially for the first power plants, but also sometimes from village representatives who had seen the power plants in other villages. In Khashmahal village on Sagar Island, for instance, the initiative for building the power plant had been taken by a political leader in the Gram Panchhayat.

WBREDA initiated local organizational structures to oversee the electricity provision in the villages. For the power plants on Sagar Island, the Sagardweep Rural Energy Development Cooperative Society was created in order to have the overall management responsibility for all the power plants on the island. On Moushuni Island, the power plants were managed by the Gram Panchayat. Local committees were initiated by WBREDA in the villages they worked with. In Sagar Island each of the villages had such a committee, while in Moushuni Island a similar committee covered the solar mini-grids in two different villages.

The responsibility of the committees (called beneficiary committees or village energy committees) was to recruit customers in the beginning, to control that the customers followed the rules for use of electricity and to address problems related to the payment for the electricity. After warnings had been given without effect, they could decide to disconnect a customer. The committees would at the same time represent the community members or customers and speak for them, for example regarding the tariff level. In these ways, the committees would support the co-operative (in the case of Sagar Island), or the Gram Panchayat (in the case of Moushuni island) to ensure smooth functioning of the local infrastructures.

5.3.6. Economic design

WBREDA found it important to have a system where people paid for the electricity services, but with low prices to ensure affordability. The power supply systems were planned to provide sufficient revenue for covering the costs of operation and maintenance of the systems, including purchase of new batteries when needed. It was also seen as realistic to get a surplus after the expenses of operation and maintenance had been covered and thereby achieve some cost recovery of investment costs. The revenue would depend on the tariff

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level, the number of customers of each power plant and the compliance of these customers to make their required payment. The main expenses would consist of payments to operators and contractors, including battery replacement, which was likely to be the largest cost.

The tariff level was decided through mutual consideration between the project implementer and the local committees. At the start-up time the tariffs varied a little bit from plant to plant in the six villages visited, indicating the influence of local decision making.

According to Mr. Choudhuri, he listened to the people he met in the villages when they told him that “we are poor people”, and took this into account during considerations on tariff levels.

Those people who decided to subscribe to the power supply would pay a connection fee and thereafter a monthly tariff. For the three points’ connection, the connection fee was 1000 Indian rupees (15.8 Euro) at the time of the fieldwork. For the five points connection, the fee was 1500 Rupees (23.5 Euro).³⁴ The monthly tariffs for the electricity use in most of the power plants on Sagar Island were 80 Rupees (1.7 Euro) and 135 Rupees (2.9 Euro) respectively, at the time of the fieldwork. In Moshuni Island the tariffs were 75 Rupees for three and 150 Rupees for five points.³⁵ These amounts were fixed monthly fees independent of consumption, and there was no metering of the electricity consumption of the customers.

The reasons for not installing meters were that the power was going to be distributed in equitable ways (limited supply for fixed hours of supply), that the costs of installing meters were high, and that technical difficulties occurred when metering was tried out. The consumption of electricity within the hours of supply was determined by the kinds of appliances that were used. The users of the electricity here found a space for stretching the limits for this electricity access without paying more, as explained below.

5.3.7. The arrangement for well-functioning daily operation and management

The first solar mini-grid, implemented in Kamalpur village on Sagar Island, was operated and maintained by an engineer from WBREDA who stayed in the village. After a while, when the number of projects grew, it became necessary to find other ways to ensure smooth operation and maintenance of all the plants. WBREDA therefore developed a contract system for operation, maintenance and repair, so that contractor companies would be responsible for providing skilled operators. The contractors were selected through open tendering processes.

These contractors, in cooperation with WBREDA, selected operators for the daily supply of electricity. There were mostly one or two operators at each power plant. Their tasks included turning on and off the power supply every day, keeping records and doing general operation and maintenance of the technical equipment. They were also responsible for monitoring the charging and discharging of the batteries and making decisions of when to cut the power supply each night. The basic maintenance was also their responsibility, including the cleaning

34 In the initial phase, for the earliest power plants, the connection fees had been lower – 500 and 1000 INR respectively, for the two connections.

35 This had remained approximately the same since the two plants in Moushuni opened in 2001 (Bagdanga village) and 2003 (Baliara village).

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of PV modules/panels, checking the level of distilled water in each battery and re-fill it, and applying vaseline to prevent corrosion of the battery terminals.³⁶

One type of contract covered the operation and daily maintenance, while another type covered the responsibility for annual maintenance.³⁷ The operation contracts were often signed with local entrepreneurs who used their own service personnel. They hired operators, decided their salary level and paid them. The annual maintenance contract was often combined with the installation of the power plant. The installer would thereby have to provide qualified staff for operation of the power plant for a minimum number of years (TERI 2009). Local people (men) who demonstrated technical skills were sometimes selected and trained during the installation phase. If there was a problem in the electronic devices, the contractors for operation would report to WBREDA, who would contact the contractor responsible for the annual maintenance.³⁸ The follow up and support for local operators was to be done by the contractors.

The procedures related to the users of electricity mainly consisted of collection of payment, controlling the amounts of electricity they used, and dealing with their complaints.

Tariff collectors were responsible for collecting payment once per month. Issues of failure to pay, over-use of electricity and complaints were the responsibility of the local committees.