sapgreen

In our quest to know more about the rural market for solar power, we headed towards villages around HD-Kote which is about 45kms from Mysore. We understood that rural market in India cannot be generalized using the statistics that big time marketers use. Each village is different from the next village. Statistics such as “average electricity ‘outages’ across states in rural areas round the year is almost 14 hours per day” do not make much sense really. What we saw was totally different and unexpected. Here are some of our questions and the answers we found direct from villagers.

1. How is the power situation in your village?
Ans: During summers, we experience more than 12 hours of power outages but now we have just 2-3 hour of outages.
2. So, what do you use at night for lighting when there is a power outage?
Ans: During nights, we don’t have that many power-cuts. Even if it is there, it is only for an hour or two.
The villagers it seemed never cared much about the loss of power for 1 or 2 hours.
3. How about a solar light for your home?
Ans: The cost would be too much for us. Moreover, we can just use a standard lead-acid battery for charging when there is power. So, why do we need to buy an extra solar panel?

Although a lot of subsidies are provided to reduce solar panel costs, the reality is that grid electricity is also heavily subsidised in villages. The time for ROI just doesn’t justify the costs involved in buying a solar panel. Moreover, villagers don’t really care about ROI and stuff. What matters is the initial investment amount involved.
To summarize, solar lighting is not a real necessity in villages which are electrified. Power outages in the grid do not justify buying solar panels (at least at its present costs). A good, cheap battery management system would have a lot of buyers though.
And there was more to learn about rural people. They expect product warranty. They expect the product to be as good as the products in the city. They expect products to be comparable in prices to even chinese products. They expect high value for low prices. They ask for suggestions from fellow villagers before deciding on a product (so unlike city people).
You meet these demands and you have a winning product. To understand the bottom of the pyramid, you got to see it for real.