Targeting Agricultural Electricity Subsidies in Haryana

PIs: Anjal Viswamohanan ,  ShrutiSharma ,  Michaël Aklin ,Tom Moernhout

PIs drew a representative sample of 1,600 farmers from adult landholders in Haryana viastratified random sampling. A self-weighted sample was created by randomly selectingvillages from all 22 districts of Haryana. In total, 200 villages were selected, and eightfarmers were selected from each village, bringing the total sample to 1,600. Morsel teamasked farmers to share information that is required to estimate agricultural electricity subsidybenefits: landholding size,number of electric pumps owned, horsepower of electric pumps,average number of irrigation days in each cropping cycle (rabi and kharif), average runninghours of the electric pump on each irrigation day, and metering and average annual paymentfor agricultural electricity. Electricity consumption is a particularly important metric and onewhere there is a significant risk that the farmer may not report data accurately, most likelybecause of poor recollection. The survey addressed this by verifying the average pumpinghours reported in the survey with the minor-irrigation census. PIs observed that our sampleclosely matches data from the census. This was the only proxy available in the absence ofbills and meters: 45% of farmers reported having meters, outof which 11% were functional.In the absence of bills and metered consumption, the study used a proxy measure to estimateannual agricultural electricity consumption. The following formula was applied for eachcropping cycle:Wattage of electric pump × number of appliances × average daily hours of useThis data was then summed for the two cropping cycles—kharif and rabi—to arrive at anestimate of the annual electricity consumption. Annual agricultural electricity subsidy perfarmer was then estimated bymultiplying annual electricity consumption by the per-unitsubsidy. In FY 2020, the subsidy per unit was INR 7.06 (USD 0.09) (Haryana ElectricityRegulatory Commission, 2021a). This study has focused on per capita subsidy for farmersand results shown inthe next chapter show per capita subsidy irrespective of pumpownership. Ninety-two per cent of the 1,600 surveyed farmers were landowners and theremaining, tenant farmers. It was unclear if tenant farmers could make decisions on pumpownership, so this study shows results for only landowners

Using high - frequency household surveys to describe energy use in rural North India during the COVID - 19 pandemic

PIs: Carlos F. Gould, Ajay Pillarisetti, Lisa M. Thompson, Sonakshi Saluja, VagishaNandan & Johannes Urpelainen Surveyswere designed to be relatively rapid—between 10 and 15minutes(Jharkhand) and 5 and 10minutes (Bihar).Survey questions focused onhousehold lighting and cooking, the costs and accessibility of modern fuelsand the reasons that households reported usingfuels as they did over thecourse of the pandemic.The Jharkhand survey was administered six timesbetween July 2020 and July 2021 to a panel of 882 rural households.Atbaseline, 85% of households were grid electrified, and an additional 2%had access to electricity from a micro-grid or a solar home system; still, 24%used kerosene lamps as their primary lighting source. Two-thirds ofparticipants reported mixed use (also known as stacking) of a pollutingcooking fuel with LPG, and one-third reported exclusively using pollutingfuels; exclusive LPG use was nearly non-existent (<1%). Between thebaseline survey in 2019 and the COVID surveys described here, one-thirdof households without LPG had acquired it. The survey in Jharkhandadditionally evaluated economic hardships encountered during thepandemic.For the second survey,researchersrecruited 450 households from eightdistricts across Bihar that were selected at random from a pool of 38,000phone numbers registered to individuals living in the stateand maintainedby Morsel Research and Development Private Limited (based in UttarPradesh, India). 

 Participants were primary cooks over 18 years of age whoreported use of both biomass and clean fuels for cooking in the weekpreceding the baseline survey administered in January 2021. Aftercompleting the baseline survey, 203 participants were randomly selected and were called once per week for eight weeks. At baseline, 16% ofhousehold heads had no formal education, and two-thirds had received asecondary education or greater.One-quarter of participants belonged tothe general caste; nearly 60% belonged to the so-called ‘Other BackwardClass’. Three-quarters of participants reported that LPG was their maincooking fuel. Primary cooks were almost all female(99.5%,n=1 male).In both study areas, fuel refills were obtained through an LPG cylinder-recirculation model, as is the norm in India. Households either call or visittheir local LPG distributor to request a refill. When households purchasedrefills, they paid the full market/international price (that is, approximately960INR or US$12.84 for a 14.2kg cylinder in January 2022). A subsidywas deposited in the consumer’s bank account sometime later. In additionto understanding energy-use behaviours during COVID-19, we sought tocharacterize how refill and subsidy deposit times varied during thepandemic

The great equalizer: Inequality in tribal energy access and policies to address it

PIs:Michaël Aklin, Brian Blankenship, Vagisha Nandan, JohannesUrpelainenIn this paper,researchersexploredtwo questions: what are the causes ofinequality in electricity access? And can government policies reduceinequality? We focus on one particular set of causes of inequality: socialcleavages. By social cleavages, we mean social and cultural divisions thatcharacterize a society [3], [4]. Social groups may be defined along religiousor cultural lines, or, as in India, be shaped by caste and tribal status (amongother existing cleavages) [5], [6], [7]. We build on research that shows howenergy access in general varies considerably across different social groups[8], [9]. In some cases, differences in energy access reflect broader welfareinequality. In other cases, energy inequality follows a political logic.Groups that are well represented politically tend to benefit from better access to electricity [10], [11]. What we ask in this paper is whether socialcleavages represent one of the causes of inequality in electricity access. Thisis our primary research question, which has drawn considerable interestbuthas mostly focused on industrialized countries [12], [13].We ask this question in the context of Jharkhand, India. One of Jharkhand’skey features is the presence of large tribal populations. According to recentcensus data, 8.6 out of Jharkhand’s 32 million inhabitants belong to a tribalgroup (also referred to as Scheduled Tribes or STs) [14].1 STs are importantsocial actors in the state’s politics [15: 281], but they are also known tosuffer from high degrees of poverty [16: 40]. Our paper investigateswhether ST households suffer from poor electricity access compared to therest of the population. Lack of electricity access despite secular trendstoward universal electrification would suggest the presence of electricityinequality.To study these questions, we build on new survey data on energy access inrural Jharkhand. We interviewed a representative sample of 1,440households across the state about their energy situation. Using this survey,we can explore the prevalence and determinants of electricity availabilityamong tribal households and the broader population. We find thathouseholds that belong to tribes are systematically less likely to have anelectric connection of any kind. In general, we find that a tribal householdis about 10 to 11 percentage points less likely to have electricity comparedto a generic household. For context, electrification rates in the generalpopulation of rural Jharkhand stands at about 87%. The differences arestatistically insignificant when we focus on hours of electricity

RURAL ELECTRIFICATION IN INDIA: CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR AND DEMAND

Shalu Agrawal, Research Associate, Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy, Nidhi Bali, Program Manager, Smart Power IndiaDr. Johannes Urpelainen, Founding Director, Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy

This study is a collaboration between Smart Power India (SPI), a subsidiary of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP), at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The report distils learnings on electricity access and customer demand. One of the unique contributions of this report is the insight on baseline electricity demand at a village level, including the use of electricity for productive purposes. The findings in this report are based on primary data collected from customer surveys of over 10,000 rural households and 2,000 rural enterprises across four Indian states – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Rajasthan. This report also provides insights into customer experiences under different electricity delivery models – public sector distribution companies (DISCOMs), solar mini-grids, and private distribution franchises. This report claims that grid-electrification coverage and adoption is high among rural households with the electric grid emerging as the primary source of electricity and lighting for many. However, gaps are prevalent with the rural micro-enterprises. In the study area, only 65% of enterprises had grid-electricity connections. While the share of connected rural enterprises is over 90% in Odisha and Rajasthan, it is lower than 60% in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. And non-grid sources such as solar home systems, rechargeable batteries, mini-grids, and diesel generators form an important part of the rural electricity mix. Sixteen percent of households and 40% of enterprises use non-grid sources.

 

Can Solar Light Change The Rural Life: An Experiment In Uttar Pradesh PIs: Professor Johannes Urpelainen

PIs: Professor Johannes Urpelainen

In this randomized controlled trial, researchers from Columbia UniversityNew York University, and the University of Washington, St. Louis, evaluated the impact of Mera Gao Power‘s solar microgrids. In the Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh, 100 habitations were surveyed for a variety of socio-economic indicators. 40 habitations were chosen for microgrid deployment and impacts measured several times over a period of 6-24 months. MORSEL conducted the surveys and supported the monitoring and implementation of the microgrid deployment. The principal investigator was Professor Johannes Urpelainen.

Location : Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh

Crowdsourcing data on the reliability of electricity service: Evidence from a telephone survey in Uttar Pradesh, India

PIs: Ryan Kennedy (The University of Houston) , Aseem Mahajan (Harvard University) , Johannes Urpelainen (Johns Hopkins SAIS)

Measuring energy access in developing countries involves much more than simply recording whether or not households are connected to the grid. Both international organizations and scholars now recognize the importance of a reliable electricity supply for achieving positive development outcomes. Yet, measuring reliability is much more difficult than measuring the existence of connections. We propose an economical crowdsourcing method for measuring reliability and compare this method to energy monitor data for 122 households over 12 months. The results suggest that, while far from perfect, crowdsourcing provides a reasonably accurate method for monitoring the reliability of access over time, especially when modeled as a non-linear relationship. We apply these findings to model energy reliability in a broader group of villages across Uttar Pradesh, India, demonstrating the existence of disparities between urban and rural reliability and seasonal fluctuations in reliability. The system laid out in this study can be utilized by government and non-government organizations to quickly and cheaply monitor energy reliability.

Livelihoods, migration and regeneration of forests in central India

Forests provide timber, fuelwood, fodder, non-timber forest products and a range of ecosystem services that support livelihoods for millions of people. As people migrate to cities for seasonal employment, their dependence on forest resources is likely to change. Moreover, afforestation with plantations and forest degradation may alter the ability of households to pursue forest-based livelihoods. Better understanding of these processes is crucial for designing policies that maximize the positive benefits and mitigate negative impacts of the forest degradation and reforestation for both people and forests. Professor Ruth DeFries and Professor Johannes Urpelainen are conducting the largest of its kind survey in three states in the Central Indian Highlands. Morsel collected data on their behalf from 5000 HHs in 500 villages and collected GPS coordinates of afforestation efforts by forest department. This project is funded by NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

A Study on Consumer Preferences for Solar Off-Grid Products

Schatz Energy Research Center Supported by the Lighting Asia/India Program, International Finance Corporation IFC Schatz Energy Research Center ( SERC ) at Humboldt State University in the United States is implementing a consumer preferences study that is supported by the Lighting Asia/India Program, IFC. In the past two years, the Indian government has significantly intensified grid electrification efforts in rural India. While the village level electrification rate has increased substantially, grid electricity remains unreliable in many areas. At the same time, the off-grid solar sector continues to deliver products to rural customers in India. Given this backdrop, the SERC team led by Dr. Arne Jacobson and Richa Goyal are studying consumer preferences for off-grid solar products and the role that solar technologies can play in bridging the energy access gap in cases where grid electricity is unreliable or not available.

The study will investigate consumer preferences for a set of technical and non-technical features of a range of off-grid solar lighting products, including whether preferences vary by gender, income, and other factors.

MORSEL is the fieldwork implementation partner for this study and is helping collect primary data from consumers and retailers of solar off-grid products in four states in India.”

Suryodaya: An experiment in Karnataka

PIs: Michael Machala, Stanford Woods Institute for the EnvironmentAndrey Poletayev, Stanford UniversityRushil Prakash, Stanford School of Earth, Energy, and EnvironmentProf. Sally Benson, Director, Precourt Institute for Energy and Professor of Energy Resources Engineering

Researchers developed and are deploying a new high-performance and affordable solar drying system for chili farmers in India. Traditional open-sun drying takes 2-3 weeks, leading to degradation of chili quality and loss of marketable chilies. Commercially available heat pump dryers can address this issue but require more electric power and CapEx than are available in rural areas. The new product dries chilies in 3-4 days, reducing risk while increasing chili quality and quantity. Researchers accomplish this by utilizing thermal management techniques to convert a low-cost, inefficient greenhouse into a well-controlled drying structure. Morsel conducted a survey with chili farmers and producing groups to test the drying-as-a-service business model.

Solar power for street vendors? Problems with centralized charging stations in urban markets

PIs: David Szakonyia , assistant professor of political science at the George Washington UniversityJohannes Urpelainen, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment (ERE) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

While energy poverty is a particularly large problem in rural areas, rapid urbanization in developing countries is also raising concerns about energy access in urban areas. How can policymakers improve energy access for the urban poor? Researchers addressed this question by investigating the use of solar power for improved lighting for urban street vendors. Findings reveal potential problems with the approach. Key issues include opposition by local strongmen who operate diesel generators, the difficulty of finding local entrepreneurs to operate the system, vendor misuse of the lights, and physical barriers such as land availability. Policy recommendations include considering the sales of standalone devices and relying on the urban electricity grid for connections.

With the help of a NGO, Nidan, researchers provided access to high-quality solar lighting to street vendors in Patna, Bihar. MORSEL has conducted a mapping of all marketplaces in Patna and collected primary data of 1,000 randomly sampled street vendors in three waves.

Location : Bihar

Increasing Household Electrification Rates in rural Uttar Pradesh with Connection Campaigns

PIs: Brian Blankenship Columbia UniversityRyan Kennedy, Associate Professor, University of HoustonJohannes Urpelainen, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment (ERE) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International StudiesJason Chun Yu Wong, London School of Economics

In this study, researchers were interested in testing whether an intervention to encourage households to set up legal electricity connections can make an impact on the total number of rural households with access to electricity. Morsel surveyed 10 households in 200 habitations in the Sitapur district and the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh.

The primary motivation of this project is to evaluate the capacity for social workers to encourage electrification as a method for meeting the government’s goal of 24×7 power to all households in UP. The electrification of villages in rural Uttar Pradesh has proceeded rapidly in recent years, but the level of consumption has remained well below the national average (India Ministry of Power, 2017).

Location : Bihar

 

Willingness to Pay for Solar Lanterns: Does the Trial Period Play a Role?

PIs: Semee Yoon , Assistant Professor of Sustainable Development and Cooperation at Underwood International College and the Graduate School of International Studies of Yonsei University.Johannes Urpelainen, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment (ERE) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Milind Kandlikar, Professor of Science, Technology, and Development at the University of British Columbia

Where electricity access is limited, solar lanterns are a viable and relatively inexpensive source of basic lighting for households. However, the creation of commercially viable business models for solar lanterns is difficult because the customers are poor and make decisions under tight liquidity constraints. To understand the economics of technology adoption in the case of solar lanterns, researchers conducted a field experiment on willingness to pay (WTP) for solar lanterns in rural Uttar Pradesh. Applying the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak method of eliciting WTP, researchers evaluate the ability of a trial period and postponed payment to increase sales.

In the marketing experiment, local volunteers sell solar lanterns to villagers under different contracting arrangements and implement a BDM game to elicit unbiased estimates of willingness to pay. MORSEL was responsible for training the volunteers, overseeing their work, and preparing a dataset for analysis.

Location : Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, India

Climate Change: Challenges Facing India’s Poor

PIs: Professor E. Somanathan (ISI) and Professor Rohini Somanathan (Delhi School of economics)

In this project, we came across many climatic tit-bits. As flood is the main cause of climatic change and everybody knows about the flood in Kosi River at Bihar during August-September 2008. Researchers studied the flood-affected areas in Bihar (A state of India, where about 80 percent population is living in rural areas).

MORSEL had done a survey along the Kosi River’s new course. Researchers selected 10 villages along the new course of the river, situated approximately 14.5 Kms away from each other. MORSEL was involved from pilot survey to final data entry. Researchers are planning to go to the same village in 2010 to find the changes.

Location : Bihar

Solar Products for Poor Rural Communities as a Business

PIs: Semee Yoon, Assistant Professor of Sustainable Development and Cooperation at Underwood International College and the Graduate School of International Studies of Yonsei UniversityJohannes Urpelainen, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment (ERE) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Can sales of solar products and services be a commercially viable business in poor rural communities? Although enthusiasm for off-grid electrification among researchers and practitioners is widespread, the determinants of commercial success in this domain remain poorly understood. In collaboration with a local social enterprise, Boond Engineering, and Development, a small investment of USD 5,000 was made to establish an energy center in the Unnao. The energy center became profitable immediately and generated seven dollars of business in solar home systems for every dollar invested during the 6-month evaluation period. Factors contributing to the success of the project included robust marketing, a strong banking partnership, the high quality of products, and continuous evaluation of staff performance. Challenges included a bias in sales toward large solar home systems, the limited access to finance for poor households, and access to working capital. Overall, the energy center model holds considerable promise for alleviating energy poverty in rural India on a large scale. MORSEL was responsible for conducting Baseline and Endline surveys in 38 villages, as well as overseeing the implementation of the field experiment on a daily basis. The survey was funded by the Earth Institute at Columbia University under an Earth Clinic grant.

Location : Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, India

Access To Clean Cooking Energy And Electricity (2015 & 2018)

PIs: Johannes Urpelainen ( Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.) , ABHISHEK JAIN, NAMRATA RAVINDRA CHINDARKAR, SUDATTA RAY, KARTHIK GANESAN, MICHAËL AKLIN, CHAO-YO CHENG

This project was funded by Shakti Foundation and Columbia UniversityCouncil on Energy, Environment and Water is also a partner of the project. This project aimed to collect household information on energy and fuel usage and equipment. For this, MORSEL selected households (HHS) by using PPS design and Systematic Random Sampling. We surveyed 9,000 households in 6 states of India. The states were Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal. Duration of the assignment was about 2 months. Read 2015 Report

Location : Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal

 

Social Learning, Gender, and Willingness to Pay for Solar Lanterns

PIs: Professor Johannes Urpelainen , Yonas Alem and Eugenie Dugoua

In this field experiment, researchers tried to find out the impact of Social Learning on the willingness to pay for a solar lantern on families in rural areas of India among both the genders. Under the supervision of Johannes Urpelainen, Yonas Alem a Postdoc Researcher, Department of Economics, The University of Gothenburg, where he received his Ph.D. in Economics and Eugenie Dugoua a Ph.D. candidate in Sustainable Development at the School of International and Public Affairs, at Columbia University. MORSEL distributed 200 solar lanterns for free and then used the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak method (BDM) game to sell the solar lantern. In this randomized control in Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh, MORSEL surveyed 1000 households in two shifts.

Location : Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh

A Frugal Innovation Approach to Dynamic Electricity Pricing in Rural India

PIs: Semee Yoon, Assistant Professor of Sustainable Development and Cooperation at Underwood International College and the Graduate School of International Studies of Yonsei UniversitySini Numminen, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto UniversityPeter Lund, Professor New Energy Technologies, Aalto UniversityJohannes Urpelainen, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources, and Environment (ERE) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

This experiment tests the applicability of a “frugal innovation” approach to dynamic pricing. The experiment will be conducted as a collaboration between Aalto University, Columbia University and Boond which is a social enterprise. The goal is to conduct a rigorous randomized controlled trial on the feasibility of dynamic pricing characterized by poverty and low demand for electricity. Researchers have found a way to reduce the cost of off-grid systems and facilitate the expansion of off-grid electricity generation for the rural population.

An innovative pricing mechanism will be tested in field conditions in the Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh in India in total, seven pico-grids that will be installed in habitations. A pilot pico-grid is meant exclusively for testing and six additional pico-grids exclusively for data collection. MORSEL collected weekly data from the households and technical data from the energy meters as well.

Location : Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh

Improving Accountability in Electricity Supply: A Field Experiment in Rural India

MORSEL conducted a study to investigate whether information and citizen empowerment can improve participatory governance and in the long run quality of electricity supply in rural India. This project is directed by Brian Blankenship, Johannes Urpelainen and Jason Wong. This project consists sample size of 12 villages of roughly equal size where meters were installed with the help of Prayas NGO, which monitored the electricity supply in each village- namely, how many hours of service there were on a given day and the number of the outage. In this study, MORSEL asked respondents about their confidence in government, their perceptions, of government responsiveness to their concerns, and their satisfaction with their electricity supply. The study includes both conventional survey experiments and conjoint experiments on valuation of electricity supply.

Location : Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh

Inverterless Survey

PIs: CEEW and IIT Madras

IIT Madras has deployed about 4,000 DC solar home systems in remote habitations of Western Rajasthan. CEEW and IITM are conducting this study to understand people’s energy needs and their willingness to pay for a certain level of energy services, as well as the impact these DC home systems on the socioeconomic condition of the households. Researchers selected 60 treatment HHs and 60 unelectrified HHs for assessment. Morsel collected primary data from selected HHs.

Location : Jaisalmer and Jodhpur, Rajasthan

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