IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id1619.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Another Look at Renewables on India’s Sagar Island

Author

Listed:
  • Sam Shrank

Abstract

Much existing literature champions renewables implementation on India’s Sagar Island as an unqualified rural electrification success story. Photovoltaic (PV) and wind systems put in place by the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency (WBREDA) have clearly brought benefits to many of the island’s residents. The Sagar Island experience identifies some deeper liabilities of the business model guiding the renewables projects. Two of the ostensible strengths of the Sagar Island implementation – the harmonious tariff collection associated with community management and the resources, competence, and assertiveness of WBREDA itself – can at the same time be considered weaknesses limiting the scope, sustainability, and replicability of the projects. This working paper considers these questions through a case study of a typical Sagar Island facility, the Mritunjoynagar PV power plant. For WBREDA and other agencies to sustain and replicate similar projects—and their attendant benefits—throughout India, they must adjust their economic model, as WBREDA is beginning to implicitly acknowledge in exploring a franchise model for future efforts. [PESD WP 77]

Suggested Citation

  • Sam Shrank, 2008. "Another Look at Renewables on India’s Sagar Island," Working Papers id:1619, eSocialSciences.
  • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:1619
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eSocialSciences.com/data/articles/Document12582008130.1871454.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Banerjee, Rangan, 2006. "Comparison of options for distributed generation in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 101-111, January.
    2. Chakrabarti, Snigdha & Chakrabarti, Subhendu, 2002. "Rural electrification programme with solar energy in remote region-a case study in an island," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 33-42, January.
    3. Bhattacharyya, Subhes C., 2006. "Energy access problem of the poor in India: Is rural electrification a remedy?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3387-3397, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Palit, Debajit & Kumar, Atul, 2022. "Drivers and barriers to rural electrification in India – A multi‐stakeholder analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kaundinya, Deepak Paramashivan & Balachandra, P. & Ravindranath, N.H., 2009. "Grid-connected versus stand-alone energy systems for decentralized power--A review of literature," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(8), pages 2041-2050, October.
    2. Oda, Hisaya & Tsujita, Yuko, 2010. "The determinants of rural electrification in Bihar, India," IDE Discussion Papers 254, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    3. Kanagawa, Makoto & Nakata, Toshihiko, 2008. "Assessment of access to electricity and the socio-economic impacts in rural areas of developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 2016-2029, June.
    4. Palit, Debajit & Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Cooper, Christopher & Zoppo, David & Eidsness, Jay & Crafton, Meredith & Johnson, Katie & Clarke, Shannon, 2013. "The trials and tribulations of the Village Energy Security Programme (VESP) in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 407-417.
    5. Oda, Hisaya & Tsujita, Yuko, 2011. "The determinants of rural electrification: The case of Bihar, India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3086-3095, June.
    6. Nieves, J.A. & Aristizábal, A.J. & Dyner, I. & Báez, O. & Ospina, D.H., 2019. "Energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions analysis in Colombia: A LEAP model application," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 380-397.
    7. Nouni, M.R. & Mullick, S.C. & Kandpal, T.C., 2008. "Providing electricity access to remote areas in India: An approach towards identifying potential areas for decentralized electricity supply," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 1187-1220, June.
    8. Purohit, Pallav, 2009. "CO2 emissions mitigation potential of solar home systems under clean development mechanism in India," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1014-1023.
    9. Subhes C. Bhattacharyya, 2018. "Mini-Grids for the Base of the Pyramid Market: A Critical Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-21, April.
    10. Cust, J. & Singh, A. & Neuhoff, K., 2007. "Rural Electrification in India: Economic and Institutional aspects of Renewables," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0763, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    11. Raman, P. & Murali, J. & Sakthivadivel, D. & Vigneswaran, V.S., 2012. "Opportunities and challenges in setting up solar photo voltaic based micro grids for electrification in rural areas of India," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 3320-3325.
    12. Sung Kim & Johannes Urpelainen, 2013. "International energy lending: who funds fossil fuels, who funds energy access for the poor?," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 411-423, November.
    13. Chambon, Clementine L. & Karia, Tanuj & Sandwell, Philip & Hallett, Jason P., 2020. "Techno-economic assessment of biomass gasification-based mini-grids for productive energy applications: The case of rural India," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 432-444.
    14. Aklin, Michaël & Bayer, Patrick & Harish, S.P. & Urpelainen, Johannes, 2015. "Quantifying slum electrification in India and explaining local variation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 203-212.
    15. Urban, Frauke & Benders, René M.J. & Moll, Henri C., 2009. "Energy for rural India," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(Supplemen), pages 47-57, November.
    16. Chaurey, Akanksha & Kandpal, Tara Chandra, 2010. "Assessment and evaluation of PV based decentralized rural electrification: An overview," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(8), pages 2266-2278, October.
    17. Debajit Palit & Ramit Malhotra & Sanjay Mande, 2017. "Enhancing viability of biofuel-based decentralized power projects for rural electrification in India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 263-283, February.
    18. Patel, Vimal R. & Upadhyay, Darshit S. & Patel, Rajesh N., 2014. "Gasification of lignite in a fixed bed reactor: Influence of particle size on performance of downdraft gasifier," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 323-332.
    19. Imam, M. & Jamasb, T. & Llorca, M. & Llorca, M., 2018. "Power Sector Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Electricity Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1801, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    20. Brahma, Antara & Saikia, Kangkana & Hiloidhari, Moonmoon & Baruah, D.C., 2016. "GIS based planning of a biomethanation power plant in Assam, India," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 596-608.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:1619. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Padma Prakash (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.esocialsciences.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.