Small is Beautiful: ARTI

This is the first post in the "Small is Beautiful" series.

The first initiative I would like to cover is Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) based in my home city, Pune. Started in 1996 by Dr. Anand Karve, ARTI has become a leading research center for developing innovative products and technology for rural India and fostering small scale village enterprises.

Majority of Indians (more than 70%) still live in villages and are dependent on agriculture and related industries for their livelihood. One could say that the world is not quite flat yet for a lot of Indians. Lack of adequate basic infrastructure in villages and lack of education are the two biggest impediments to India realizing its true potential. One of the ways to bring development is to give the tools and training necessary to earn a good livelihood in the hands of people and give them opportunity to participate fully in the economy. Over the last decade ARTI has made this its primary mission and has completed over 50 different projects in appropriate rural technology. ARTI has also started a center to foster rural enterprises based on the technology it has developed. Here is a snapshot of it's objectives from its website.

ARTI undertakes research to study, develop, standardise, implement, commercialise and popularise innovative appropriate rural technologies with special emphasis on making traditional rural businesses more profitable and also on generating novel employment opportunities in rural areas. We have now nearly 25 standardised and field-tested technologies to offer to rural entrepreneurs through our Rural Entrepreneurship Development Centre (REDC). Our sphere of activities is no longer restricted to Maharashtra, but has spread to other states including Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pardesh, Sikkim, Tripura and Kerala. Some of our technologies are also being tried out in other developing countries in Asia and Africa. (read more...)

At Oorjaa we are more interested in the energy related projects. Both of the rural energy related project by ARTI have won the Ashden award for sustainable energy. The latest project is a compact biogas system that can operate on household raw vegetable and food waste. This is especially relevant because of its application to individual households in urban and semi-urban as well as rural areas. Biogas is not new in India. There have been attempts by central and state governments to popularize biogas in rural areas since 1950. In my childhood I remember there used to be signs in Marathi saying: "गाव तिथे गोबर गॅस " (A biogas plants in every village). The initial plants were focused on cattle dung (गोबर) as the source. In India the dung is traditionally dried into flat patties (called शेण्या in Marathi) and used as fuel. The initial plants needed skilled monitoring of the dung input to the digester to ensure continuous operation. Lack of adequate training in the use of these plants led to failure. Many of these plants either did not perform to standards or fell into disuse. Even today India has a national program for promotion of biogas [::MNES link]. Inspite of the mixed success record there are around 3.5 million biogas plants in operation in India according the ministry of non-conventional energy sources [MNES].

The compact biogas plant developed by ARTI is significantly different than the models developed by the national program. It uses considerably less amount of input waste, can operate on domestic household waste (as opposed to cattle dung), costs less to install and is much more efficient at producing biogas than the conventional designs. To quote from ARTI website...

Dr. Anand Karve (President of ARTI) developed a compact biogas system that uses starchy or sugary feedstock. Just 2 kg of such feedstock produces about 500 g of methane, and the reaction is completed with 24 hours. The conventional biogas systems, using cattle dung, sewerage, etc. use about 40 kg feedstock to produce the same quantity of methane, and require about 40 days to complete the reaction. Thus, from the point of view of conversion of feedstock into methane, the system developed by Dr. Anand Karve is 20 times as efficient as the conventional system, and from the point of view of reaction time, it is 40 times as efficient. Thus, overall, the new system is 800 times as efficient as the conventional biogas system. (read more...)

Dr. Karve with the compact biogas system
Photo courtesy:www.arti-india.org

ARTI is now being funded by the US-EPA to commercialize this technology. Under this project ARTI provides training to rural entrepreneurs to build these plants and sell them on a purely commercial basis. Between 2003 and 2006 ARTI has installed 800 such plants.

The other rural energy project by ARTI is the technology to generate briquetted charcoal from sugarcane waste and the associated Sarai cooking system. This project received the Ashden award in 2002. The Sangli, Satara and Kolhapur districts in Maharashtra are popularly known as the "sugar belt". Large amount of sugarcane is cultivated in these areas. After sugarcane is harvested large amount of thrash (roughly 4 million tons) mainly consisting of the leaves is burnt on the field itself. This practice has been going on for ages. ARTI has come up with a novel technique to convert the leaf thrash into briquetted charcoal. ARTI has also developed a stove called "Sarai" that can efficiently burn these briquettes. This stove can be used for cooking and replaces the traditional wood burning stove (चूल in Marathi) used in many rural households.

You can have a look at other rural technologies developed by ARTI by visiting their website. One common thread you will find in all of them is that they fit very well in the "simple, sustainable, low-cost, high impact" model. All of these technologies use local resources, supplement or improve activities traditionally practiced in the area and hence are easy to adopt for the target population. This makes integration of the technology in the rural areas much easier. I believe that this is the direction to achieve development in the most efficient and sustainable way.

Here at Oorjaa we will keep a keen watch on future technologies developed by ARTI, so do keep checking back.

Link List:
[1] ARTI website
[2] Ashden Awards website
[3] Ashden Awards press releases for the 2006 award (Compact biogas system) and 2002 award (Briquetted charcoal system)
[4] India Together article about ARTI
[6] MNES link for national biogas program
[7] An interesting thesis about integration of biogas technology in India (PDF file)

Technorati Tags: ARTI, Rural Technology, Biogas, Biomass, Ashden Award

DESI Power

"Desi" is Hindi word for "from the country" or "from the homeland" (Des = country or homeland). It is often used (by Indians) as a slang for other Indians in the US. DESI Power is a company back home in India, that has given another meaning to the word Desi.

DESI stands for "Decentralized Energy Systems India" Pvt. Ltd. The company provides decentralized power to remote villages and semi-urban areas using biomass fueled power plants. Currently the company targets two different markets:

• Small scale industries in semi-urban areas which depend on diesel generators for power (due to unreliable grid electricity supply)
• Remote villages which have not been electrified or lack reliable supply.

For the small scale industries the company provides services to retrofit existing diesel generator sets to run on dual fuel mode using biomass gasification. The incentives for the company are reduced fuel costs due to low cost of biomass, reliable supply and increased productivity.

I find the second part of the company's mission more interesting. While targeting the remote rural market, the company has adopted a socially responsible approach which makes very good business sense too. It aims to establish Independent Rural Power Producers (IRPPs) which will be small scale power generation plants based on biomass gasification (for now) and other alternative energy sources such as solar and wind in future. Read more...

... DesiPower's business model for Independent Rural Power Producers involves building, operating and later on transferring decentralized power stations to the villagers. The building of IRPPs is integrated with the establishment of profitable local small scale industries, businesses and agro-forestry owned by the villagers. For commercial success, the power plant has to sell as much electricity as it can generate and the villagers have to produce and sell as much of their products as they can in the village and at neighbouring market places. The mutual dependence is further strengthened through, on the one hand, the generation of additional income from the supply of agro-residues and other biomass to the power plant and, on the other, by the continuing extension services and training provided by DesiPower's cluster centre. (Read more about their business model)

To develop this business model, the company seeks partnerships with local organizations such as NGOs operating in the area. The local partners help in promoting small scale industries in the rural area. With the help of reliable power supply provided by DESI power, these industries can become a source of employment and income to the rural community. The rural community also benefits from the sale of biomass to DESI power.

So far DESI power has built 10 such plants operating on biomass gasification. Out of them, three are of the IRPP model and are based in villages in Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh states. The plant in Madhya Pradesh is based in near Orchaa. At this location, the NGO - Development Alternatives - has started a center which runs small scale industries and provides training and employment to the rural community. The center utilizes the power generated by the 100kW biomass gasifier based power plant operated by DESI power. The biomass fuel is a locally available grass - "Ipunia", which previously had no economic value and grows in marshy land not suitable for agriculture. The center runs a paper making unit and low cost building materials (briquettes) unit and provides employment for 130 people. Here is a BBC article about the Orchaa plant.

The IRPP model adopted by DESI power is a sustainable and socially-ecologically responsible approach. Furthermore, these small renewable energy power plants can also sell Certified Emission Reductions under the Clean Development Mechanism put in place by the Kyoto protocol. In January 2005 DESI power sold 3150 tonnes of certified CO2 reductions to the Davos Climate Alliance (to partly compensate for the emission of greenhouse gases caused by dignitaries and world leaders who attended the Davos World Economic Forum). The proceeds from the sale contributed towards cost of a power plant based on the IRPP model in Bihar.

A significant portion of Indian population is based in rural areas and many of these areas don't have access to reliable power. I had written a post on Transmogrified about decentralized energy production in India. In that post I had argued that there is a huge market for such systems based on renewable alternative sources, which remains largely untapped. At the end of the post I had wondered that if such a market is "money lying on the sidewalk", why isn't someone picking it up?. With companies like DESI power, I guess I we know that someone is picking it up.

Technorati Tags: DESI power, renewable energy, India, Decentralized generation