Smart Power India: Demand Generation Handbook

India has made phenomenal strides in achieving universal electrification, and with the government’s persistent efforts, all villages in India have been electrified and today, almost 100% households have received electricity connections.

Now that the government has achieved this commendable feat, the attention has shifted to the next electrification challenge of providing effective, quality electricity supply and service not just for lighting purposes but also for productive use. It has been well established that electricity is a change agent that improves quality of life and promotes economic activities.

While there has been tremendous progress made in rural electrification with respect to household electrification, challenges remain in even ensuring basic connections to rural businesses and microenterprises.

The mini-grid sector has proved that reliability is key to unlocking latent demand and achieving the full economic potential of energy access in under-served regions. Only with access to reliable power are enterprises likely to employ relatively expensive and sophisticated appliances for productive purposes.

The Demand Generation Manual for Solar Mini Grid developed by Smart Power India aims to address the importance of electricity for productive use by creating adequate demand among customers. The focus of this manual is to guide practitioners on how to generate demand, impacting the mini-grid sustainability, supporting micro-enterprises, and the well-being of the rural community. While focused on the Indian mini-grid set up, the manual has useful lessons and learnings for other contexts, and the outlined value chain can be replicated and customized for other markets.