DESI plans EmPower project

Chennai: Decentralised Energy Systems India Pvt Ltd (DESI) plans to expand its ‘100 village EmPower’ partnership programme to 10 more locations across India. Launched in 2005, the programme was first set up in Araria district, Bihar, where each village was envisioned to be equipped with a biomass gassifier-based power plant to provide energy services and electricity for micro industries to create jobs.

“Commercial operations are running in four villages and 20 more will attain commercialisation in the next 18 months,” Dr Hari Sharan, Chairman, DESI Power, told a group of journalists on the sidelines of a two-day Indo-UK workshop on ‘Low Carbon Technologies for Decentralised Power Production’, organised by IIT Madras and British Council and sponsored by the Asia Pacific Centre for Energy and Environment.

Investment:

DESI Power’s business model works by setting up low carbon, renewable energy systems through village level support (in the form of manpower), loan from banks and equity from social investors. Power generated is used for village level consumption and excesses are sold to buyers as carbon credits. “About 50 per cent of our investment comes from sale of carbon credits to countries such as Switzerland, Germany and the UK,” Dr Sharan said.

When asked if locations for new projects were finalised, he said no. “We have the technology, training methods and scaling up is easy. The issue is with the Government that insists all these schemes come under its rural electrification programme. We feel a public-private partnership with a local partner is the only way for these projects to succeed.”

Any community willing to partner in the scheme is welcome, he said.