Chhattisgarh: Solar Galore

Off for site visits!  These past two weeks I have been going to site visits to see renewable energy installations for my internship.  I went with Meenal Jain, a PhD student at Lady Irwin College. I knew her before - she came to Michigan State on the exchange program three years ago and my dad is her co-advisor. She just started her PhD last month (after teaching at LIC for a little while) and since her topic is also on renewable energy, these visits were a perfect visit for her as well to kick start her research.

Our first stop was Chhattisgarh, a newly formed state that seceded from the larger neighboring state, Madhya Pradesh about 10 years ago.  The nodal agency there is CREDA:  Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Development Agency. They are headed by the very dynamic man Mr. S.K. Shukla.  He is very enthusiastic and totally into renewable energy...we got a lot of good information from him  We were able to see many sites around Raipur (the capital city) with solar PV and thermal applications (PV cells generate electricity and thermal applications are used for water heating).  Raipur is a much smaller city than Delhi and not that developed, but many many buildings had solar systems installed! There is a huge push by the state government to implement solar in the urban areas, so because of this every sector is taking advantage of it.  Plus there is no shortage of sunshine, let me tell you!

The CREDA building (solar passive architecture and 80 kW solar plant on the roof)

Little kid cars that are powered by solar energy. How cool is that?!
These are located in the energy education park in Raipur.

A solar plant for street lighting

The middle of our trip brought us some adventures in the forest. 45% of Chhattisgarh is dense forest areas where the government has banned grid connection. Because of this, renewable energy implementation is key for bringing electricity to the village/tribal people.  So off we went, 2 hours away from Raipur, through the dense forest where the roads were more like dirt paths...we got to visit many villages with a solar power plant installed (anywhere from 4-10 kW of capacity). Most importantly, we got to talk with the village people, spend time with them, and understand their needs and thoughts about the solar panels.  There is a large gender gap in rural areas, so it was advantageous to be girls - the women (ultimately the main end-users of the technology) were more than willing to talk with us!  The information we got by talking to the women and children was invaluable to our research as well as inspiring to us.

The night in between, we stayed at a cottage-type inn that was in the middle of the forest. The minister of the renewable energy ministry through the government stayed here when he came!  The next day, we went to more villages.  Talking with the people was amazing - although they have so little, they were always willing to talk with us, show us their homes, and offer us food and tea. I have certainly learned so much from seeing this attitude...I think it would benefit everyone to learn from this as well.  It makes me value everything I have been given in my life, especially my family, home and education. It's refreshing to be reminded of how lucky I am!

I tried to help some girls in the village carry water...I finally got the little girl to
give me her pot.  Even that was heavy! How in the world do the other girls carry the bigger pots?

Some of the village people...this group was especially lively and fun to talk to.