Productive use of Access to Energy Solutions

KfW, in collaboration with the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and PwC India, organised two 1-day workshops on ‘‘Productive use of Access to Energy Solutions’’ on March 9 2022, and March 10, 2022, respectively. The workshops were organised as part of KfW-IREDA “Access to Energy” (A2E) line of credit which focuses on improving the supply and use of sustainable clean energy services in rural areas through improved access to financing for project developers. Being the first of its kind with incentives, the line has attracted attention from different categories of players such as private sector companies, start-ups in the sector, NBFCs, MFIs and others looking for financing for veteran and new technology solutions and services to be implemented in rural areas. 

The workshop on day 1 was organised for IREDA staff, and the workshop on day 2, on the other hand, for off-grid renewable energy (RE) sector organisations active in India. On both days, it was attended by 40+ participants. The workshop provided hands-on training to IREDA staff as well as IREDA’s potential and existing sub-borrowers on using meaningful approaches to strengthen the adoption of productive uses of energy and to clear away hurdles for such uptake by A2E businesses. The workshop was delivered by Dr. Ashok Das, Founder and CEO of SunMoksha and Ms. Ayushi Sharma, Techno-Social Development Lead at SunMoksha.

The first session focused on presenting an overview of the productive loads in the access to the energy sector. The session included an introduction to productive loads in the A2E sector followed by the benefits of the productive loads. This session also covered the classification of productive loads into agricultural and non-agricultural loads. 

The second session of the workshop focused on discussing the implementation requirements of productive loads into businesses. This session also focused on the enabling environment required for productive loads and the essential preconditions for taking up productive loads. This session also covered the key challenges hindering the adoption of productive loads by businesses. 

The third session was also delivered, which focused on presenting case study analyses of productive loads served by KARMA on day 1 and productive loads served by KARMA and Husk Power on day 2. In the end, a Q&A session was organised each day to take up the audience’s questions. The key discussion points included:

• Tariff structures prevalent for serving productive loads by mini-grids 
• Capacity of a micro-grid that a new entrant in the market should consider developing in case productive loads are being served
• Kind of productive loads a business can serve that will also attract lenders / lending in the sector
• Decrease in the LCOE that is possible with implementation of productive loads by a business
• Correlation between access to electricity and economic growth