Solar energy, dc distribution, and microgrids: Ensuring quality power in Rural India

As the Leisang village in Manipur received electricity in April 2018, the prime minister of India announced that every Indian village is now electrified. A village is considered electrified in India when 10% of its homes receive electricity. However, the number of village homes that have electricity has now reached 84%, with some 41 million households still without power. This village-electrification program has been going on for many years. Until a few years back, there was a large shortage of power with power demand exceeding supply, leading to no/a weak push to extend the grid to the village. Over the last few years, when more coal power plants became operational, the supply strengthened. At the same time, the energy costs for the solar and wind powerattained grid parity, enabling the addition of significant renewable power. Simultaneously, the power grid was strengthened, and India attained a single national grid on 31 December 2013, such that power generated in surplus areas could be transported to deficit regions. All of this helped in surplus power generation because the demand did not pick up much in recent years. The social obligation to extend the electric grid to each village and then to at least 10% of its homes no longer had a fundamental bottleneck. The target-driven approach of the prime minister?s office helped to expedite the effort.