BANGALORE, INDIA: This year two Indians, Harish Hande and Neelima Mishra, are among the five individuals and one organization cited for the prestigious Magsaysay Award. Interestingly, Harish Hande got the recognition for his “passionate and pragmatic efforts to put solar power technology in the hands of the poor, through a social enterprise that brings customized, affordable, and sustainable electricity to India's vast rural populace, encouraging the poor to become asset creators".

Hande is an engineer from IIT Kharagpur and a renewable energy entrepreneur working at the grassroots level to meet the energy requirements of rural households. He is the co-founder and managing director of Selco India, a rural energy company based out of Bangalore.

Since 1995, Selco India has installed over 115,000 solar lighting systems in rural households in southern India. Selco also created India’s first rural solar financing program using regional banks. Besides leading Selco, Hande is extensively engaged in a large number of health, education, and water related projects: over 500 small rural and urban health clinics, over 1,000 rural and semi-urban schools and dormitories, and over 1,500 irrigation and drinking water systems.

In this interview, Hande and Technology Review India’s Group Editor Narayanan Suresh discuss the much admired sustainable solar energy model pioneered by Selco.

TR: Is India going in the right direction in tapping the abundant solar energy?

Hande: The present policies give a mixed signal regarding the direction India is taking towards solar energy. More emphasis is given towards large scale solar [energy companies] than small decentralized solar [companies]. We should create policies that are conducive for creating sustainable ventures that will provide decentralized solutions to the poor. Providing capital subsidies to the poor is not a sustainable path.

What is the secret ingredient in the success of Selco’s sustainable solar energy use model?

Actually, there is really no secret ingredient. For many years it was the passion of the employees to prove that a sustainable model existed while serving the poor. That passion mixed with a little bit of common sense helped Selco to create a model that we feel is the right way to do it.

Street vendors in many small towns spend Rs. 15-18 daily to use kerosene lamps during the busy shopping hours in the evening. And this consumes a substantial part of their daily earnings. In a pilot project done in Hassan town of Karnataka, Selco enthused a local auto rickshaw driver to turn an energy entrepreneur. The driver was given a solar system at concessional financial terms. He uses this to charge conventional batteries which are rented to the street vendors in the evenings for Rs. 8 per day, which is half the cost of kerosene lamps. This enabled vendors to make substantial savings. In Hassan, this particular driver has more than 115 vendor-clients now. The Hassan model has been repeated in a large number of semi-urban areas across the state.

Then Selco was founded to make and supply affordable solar-powered lighting systems. So far we have supplied over 115,000 solar lighting systems in Karnataka since 1995, benefiting directly more than 400,000 people. But more than the supply of systems, the delivery of these lighting solutions to the people who need affordable energy sources was the game changer for Selco.

Lighting and thermal heating are among the most popular applications of solar energy now. Can it be used to replace the energy-inefficient electric pumps used by millions of farmers?

Water pumping is still some way to go. The solar water pumps are expensive when you take into consideration the depleting water tables and inefficient usage of water. The first step in agricultural pumping is to make the existing pumps efficient and also incentivize efficient usage of water - solar is not a solution here.

Solar energy is gaining popularity thanks to the growing environmental consciousness? Any new killer applications or technological innovations which can make it even more attractive to the people?

Yes, good doorstep financing that matches the cash flow of the user will make it click. The other application is to be able to assess the need of the user properly. Today, many sell solar [products] and design it [them] for the need of the user.

Why are there only a few number of Selcos in the country? How can we create more Selcos?

Get some passionate youth and you surely can change the scenario! Selco has offices in most small towns in Karnataka. We have trained school dropouts in hundreds of villages to provide maintenance service to the users.

Selco is very choosy about its investors. The company has got funding from International Finance Corporation, which is the private lending arm of the World Bank. And after intensive due diligence, Selco has roped in three “ethical” investors into the company. The company follows a unique HR model which does not have a hierarchical structure. In fact, the office assistant at the company’s branch in Kumta near Karwar rose to become the organization’s deputy chief operating officer (COO) recently.

What was the most important hurdle that Selco had to cross before it became an amazing success story?

The most important hurdle was to convince rural banks to finance solar [product]. That was the key to Selco’s success.

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