Management of Solar Energy Technologies and Women Empowerment: a Case of Women Barefoot Solar Engineers of India

Dwindling and scarce energy resources in India have deprived electricity connectivity to 23 percent of 5, 86,000 villages and 56 percent of 138 million households in India. Difficult, remote locations and inaccessible terrain have compounded to the issue making it a Herculean task for various governments to extend electricity distribution networks to habitations and bring such scattered population into the ambit of electrification. Our attempts in India in the last decades show lack of aftercarefollow up ?maintenance of these systems as reasons for the defunct systems. Solar energy technologies demonstrate as an alternative in meeting the electrification need in such difficult areas. This book discusses in detail on the conceptualisation of solar electrification project by National Institute of Rural Development, its initiation, management of rural energy systems by the community, training, supply and demand chains , collaborative linkages , sustainability and business dealing.