In India off-grid means remote, rural areas where there are no roads, frequent sandstorms and villagers who live in mud thatch or tin huts. Only 44% of rural households have access to electricity, with 50 million homes off-grid and 50% of Indian homes unable to afford even subsidized electricity.
This rooftop solar panel program provides clean, renewable, Direct Current (DC) electricity to 40,000 rural households many of whom would not have lights otherwise. Households consume less than 500 kWh of electricity per year. For comparison purposes, the average American home consumes an average of 900 kWh of electricity in a month.
The innovative and award-winning DC system created by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, provides families with the rooftop DC solar panel, a small-sized battery with a controller to stop charging when full, an inverter-less converter to Alternating Current (AC), light bulbs, a fan, a mobile charging unit and a socket for other uses.
To visit one of the project areas, we traveled by boat to river islands that are home to extremely poor Jute farmers. Their weather is characterized by regular floods and extreme heat. Local people are constantly at risk of diseases such as dengue and malaria.