Solar bulbs light up desert state

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=3&subLeft=2&chklogin=N&autono=319342&tab=r

Solar bulbs light up desert state

Kartikeya Singh / New Delhi April 08, 2008
It is a simple device but has shrunk the nights in Rajasthan’s countryside. Over the past decade, thousands of families in the state’s remote villages, unconnected with the power grid, have installed solar lighting systems at their homes, which harness solar energy to generate electricity.

According to the Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation, the nodal agency of the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), 73,590 solar home lighting systems have been installed in Rajasthan since 1999. This is more than one-fifth of the total such systems installed across the country.

Dabkan in Alwar district is one such village where all the 50-odd families use solar lighting systems. “We don’t need the grid. It is unreliable and dangerous, and one has to keep paying the bill,” says Choti Devi, a resident. While solar power came to Dabkan in 2006, some villages in Sawai Madhopur district have been using it for 6-7 years.

The device, manufactured by Rajasthan Electronics and Instruments Ltd, has a 37-watt solar panel, a 12-volt battery with an estimated life of five years and a two-point connection, which includes two nine-watt cfl bulbs.

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[diane in sf]

1. To repeat my response to another thread--this is the cheapest way to get lighting

in remote villages. Evolution is occurring in the margins as usual. Grid power in India and other marginal is not just dangerous and erratic, it is also pretty dirty.

[diane in sf]

2. Having spent months in India and Rajasthan, I can't imagine a more perfect

place for solar power. It is sunny and arid pretty much year round.

[Nihil]

3. K & R #5

Excellent use of solar PV!
:applause:

[DCKit]

4. But what does the Nnew-cue-lur Nnaysayer have to say about this?

I mean, it can't possibly work if even the poor are able to afford it.

Please tell me what to think!

:sarcasm: just in case.