Lighting up homes with grit and dreams

When we hear the word innovation, we often think of new technologies or silver bullet solutions like hydrogen fuel cells or a cure for cancer. To be sure, breakthroughs are vital. But, some of the greatest advances come from taking old ideas or technologies and making them accessible to millions of people who are undeserved.One area where this is desperately needed is access to electricity. In the age of the iPad, its easy to forget that roughly a quarter of the worlds population about a billion-and-a-half people still lack electricity. This isnt just an inconvenience; it takes a severe toll on economic life, education and health. Its estimated that two million people die prematurely each year as a result of pulmonary diseases caused by the indoor burning of fuels for cooking and light. In vast stretches of the developing world, after the sun sets, everything goes dark. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 70 per cent of the population lack electricity. However, no country has more citizens living without power than India, where more than 400 million people, the vast majority of them villagers, have no electricity. The place that remains most in darkness is Bihar, which has more than 80 million people, 85 per cent of whom live in households with no grid connection. Because Bihar has nowhere near the capacity to meet its current power demands. But a fast-growing off-grid electricity company based in Bihar, called Husk Power Systems, has created a system to turn rice husks into electricity that is reliable, eco-friendly and affordable for families that can spend only $2 a month for power. The company has 65 power units that serve a total of 30,000 households and is currently installing new systems.Husk Power was founded by four friends: Mr Gyanesh Pandey, Mr Manoj Sinha, Mr Ratnesh Yadav and Mr Charles W. Ransler, who met attending different schools in India and the United States. Mr Pandey, the companys chief executive, grew up in a village in Bihar without electricity. I felt low because! of that , he told me. He decided to study electrical engineering. He found his way to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York, where he completed a masters degree before landing a position with the semi-conductor manufacturer International Rectifier in Los Angeles. His job was to figure out how to get the best performance from integrated circuits at the lowest possible cost. He bought his family a diesel-powered electric generator. I was basically cruising through life, he recalled. But along with that pleasure and smoothness was a dark zone in my head. He realised that he felt compelled to return home and use his knowledge to bring light to Bihar.Back in India, he and his friend Mr Yadav, an entrepreneur, spent the next few years experimenting. They explored the possibility of producing organic solar cells. They tried growing a plant called jatropha, whose seeds can be used for biodiesel. Both proved impractical as businesses. They tested out solar lamps, but found their application limited. One day he ran into a salesman who sold gasifiers machines that burn organic materials in an oxygen restricted environment to produce biogas which can be used to power an engine. There was nothing new about gasifiers; they had been around for decades. People sometimes burned rice husks in them to supplement diesel fuel, which was expensive. But nobody had thought to use rice husks to run a whole power system, explained Mr Pandey.When rice is milled, the outside kernel, or husk, is discarded. Bihar produces 1.8 billion kilograms of rice husk per year and most of it ends up rotting in landfills and emitting methane, a greenhouse gas. Mr Pandey and Mr Yadav began bringing pieces together for an electric distribution system powered by the husks and came up with a system that could burn 50 kilograms of rice husk per hour and produce 32 kilowatts of power, sufficient for about 500 village households.They reached out to people in Tamkuha village, offering them a deal: for `80 a month roughly $1.75 a household ! could ge t daily power for one 30-watt or two 15-watt CFL bulbs and unlimited cell phone charging between 5 pm and 11 pm. For many families, the price was less than half their monthly kerosene costs, and the light would be much brighter. It would also be less smoky, less of a fire hazard, and better for the environment. Customers could pay for more power if they needed it for radios, TVs, ceiling fans or water pumps. But many had no appliances and lived in huts so small, one bulb was enough. The system went live on August 15, 2007, the anniversary of Indias Independence. Husk Power has since raised $1.75 million in investment financing. In 2009, they had 19 systems in operation; in 2010, they more than tripled that number. For decades, countries have operated on the assumption that power from large electricity plants will eventually trickle down to villagers. In many parts of the world, this has proven to be elusive. Husk Power has identified at least 25,000 villages across Bihar and neighbouring states in Indias rice belt as appropriate for its model.David Bornstein is the author of How to Change the World and The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank, and is co-author of Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know. By arrangement with the New York Times

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