Decentralized energy services delivery in developing countries: Case study: India

Abstract

In developing countries, access to modern energy services is limited in spite of ambitious efforts of the governments and international development agencies like the World Bank. In this work, the importance of decentralized energy service delivery in developing countries has been investigated using the concepts of Service Engineering and institutional analysis of different delivery models is performed using the process mapping technique from the energy service provider's perspective. Decentralized energy service delivery has the theoretical potential to satisfy energy needs of the rural inhabitants. It supplements and strengthens the current centralized energy services delivery system in urban areas of developing countries. In addition, promotion of decentralized energy service delivery in developing countries will provide the necessary market-pull for renewable energy technologies.

Decentralized energy service delivery by the market demonstrates the sustainability and scalability at an institutional level in developing countries. Small and medium scale enterprises play an important role in decentralized energy service delivery due to dispersed nature of potential end-users and needs to be promoted to improve access to modern energy services. Knowledge gap is the main challenge, as is evident from the walkthrough audit of the market delivery models, and this needs to be bridged in order to promote decentralized energy delivery through market approach.