The State of Energy Access in India

The Clean Energy Solutions Center, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation’s Energy Access Practitioner Network, hosted this webinar to showcase work underway in India to support energy access using decentralized energy solutions. This webinar is part of the broader work the UN Foundation is undertaking around energy access within the UN and the World Bank’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative.

The webinar explored the residual energy access issues in India by highlighting the current government’s efforts to bring modern energy services to the significant Indian population still lacking continuous and reliable access, as well as efforts underway by practitioners to assist in scaling energy access in India via decentralized solutions. The webinar also featured a presentation of the newly launched Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN).

• Ms. Gauri Singh, Commissioner, Renewable Energy for Madhya Pradesh and head of the Renewable Energy Corporation in Madhya Pradesh, and formerly Director, Knowledge Management & Technology Cooperation, IRENA, will provide an overview of the Indian government’s work on scaling energy access to date, particularly focusing on recent developments under President Modi.
• Mr. Harish Hande, Co-founder, Selco, will discuss the role of social enterprises in advancing energy access on the country level and discuss his organization’s activities to help scale up energy access in India from a practitioner perspective.
• Mr. Ashis Kumar Sahu, CEO, Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN), will introduce the newly launched Clean Energy Access Network, and discuss its vision and planned activities going forward.

Webinar presentations were followed by an interactive Q & A session in which participants discussed the details of the rural electrification models in India and how these can be scaled up and applied to other contexts.