Solar Electrification for Street vendors

Introduction
Indian cities teem with street hawkers. These vendors set up shop on boulevards,
streets and alleys, offering a wide variety of goods from their makeshift stands. The
activity doesnt cease when the sun goes down shoppers continue to frequent the
stalls well after dusk. Most street hawkers use kerosene lamps to light their wares.
However, kerosene lamps present a number of problems. The lamps only cast a
small arc of light; they produce a distinct and harmful petrochemical smell and the
flames represent a constant fire hazard.
In the city like Ahemdabad, around 1, 00,000 street hawkers are operating on daily
bases such as pani puri wala, road side food stalls, vegetable vendors and street
cloth markets. According to National policy on street vendors (2004) there is a
provision for electricity but how and at which form a question is. There is no as
such actions are being taken to provide the electricity by the municipal
corporation. Because of the gap from supply side i.e. from government authorities
and of high demand most of the private players are getting a chance to exploit these
small daily vendors.
The alternative solution is lead battery for electrification and for that they have to
charge around INR 100-120 which is a big amount for the hawker whose daily
earning is somewhere around INR 200-300.This is the one of the major cost a small
vendor has to bear. So, what can the solution that can be help in reducing the cost
of the overall operation of one day? The solution can be plenty but one of the easy
solutions can be solar panel mounted lights and solar equipments. The scope of the
solar electrification is huge in terms of government policies and subsides.
MNRE has recently set a target of installing 40,000 MW of rooftop solar system by
2022 and so many states are launching similar policies and programs to promote
solar electrification. Today India has only 300 MW of solar photovoltaics installed
on rooftops. So a conversion with these policies to reduce the vulnerability of street
vendors can be a good initiative.

Policy tools
Financial Assistance:

In this system the government provides financial assistance to set up rooftop

panels system. Central government provides 40% of the cost of system to the
beneficiaries where 30% is from MNRE & extra 10% from green energy fund. In
case of below poverty line beneficiarys government provide 80% of the cost.
This is a good attractive policy to encourage people to set up solar rooftop panels
and the government needs to use this policy tool more. The implementation is the
key in this case like more hassle in the process to get money may restrict the
consumer from benefitting of this policy. For low income or middle income group
micro credit facility should be provided.

Description
My plan is to provide electrical appliances for street vendors majorly which includes
solar lighting, solar fans, solar panels for electronic egg boiler and cooking hot plate
(need to check feasibility). The business includes procuring the solar devices at
lower prices and provides these to customers (street vendors in my case) with
economically viable solutions like payment in instalments with the collaboration of
microfinance institutions and government subsidy from the government. My major
stakeholders of the business will include end customers (street vendors), solar
panel or solar devices suppliers, Maintenance technician, microfinance institutions
and government.

Methods
This initiative is a study of a field project conducted in urban area for academic
research. The project consists of designing and implementing the intervention,
along with a careful documentation and analysis of data. We begin the section by
reviewing the literature on urban energy poverty and then provide a succinct but
complete description of the field project.

Literature review
On the same line of work, some existing solar NGOs are working the following is the
brief of their working models and challenges in present scenario.

SELCO Model

SELCO has done an attempt to assess solar lantern based lighting option for street
vendors (often without access to grid electricity) in the city of Dehradun through a
questionnaire based survey is presented. Survey results indicate that the vendors
are more likely to adopt a lighting device on rental mode that offers the benefit of
low operation cost and high reliability.
The study points that the city has potential for 10 Central Charging Stations of
1200 W capacity each. Each station would cater to the lighting needs of 100
vendors. Based on the vendors willingness to pay for lighting services, estimated
minimum acceptable daily rental to an entrepreneur operating a station is Rs 3.97.
This is about 45% of the average daily rental of Rs 8.90 that the vendors are willing
to pay. For daily rental ranging between Rs 4.00 to Rs 9.00, the mark-up for the
entrepreneur would range from 16 to 160%.
SELCO recognized that replacing the kerosene lanterns with solar lights could
represent a considerable improvement for street vendors. But these micromerchants had neither the resources to buy nor the real estate to deploy PV panels,
inverters and batteries to power solar lighting.
The answer surfaced in redesigning the way solar energy was supplied. Rather than
building a system where each vendor had its own solar light set-up, SELCO hit
upon a scheme where a new type of vendor, the solar lighting entrepreneur, would
supply street vendors with solar energy on a daily basis. The solar lighting
entrepreneur would purchase an array of solar panels and batteries.

NIDAN Model
In the state of Bihar in India, street vendors are one of the most unprivileged
communities and have been struggling for their rights, since long time. Policy
makers, Government and law makers have made hundreds of promises for their
development but actually none were implemented. Recently NIDAN offered
entrepreneurial opportunities to street vendors for solar lighting for their
community so that it will help the community to be aware about green technology,
its benefits and long term sustainability. This opportunity was also given to the
community in order to enhance the livelihood of the community by adopting better
lighting solutions, attract more customers and ultimately improving business
revenue for them.
The entrepreneur Deepak Kumar Diwakar was identified and selected from the
community and was provided with Solar central charging station of 150 watts,
which can charge 30 to 35 solar batteries of 12 volts and with 30 to 35 LED lights
of 4.8 watts each. These lights are distributed to vendors every evening for lighting
solution and then collected back by entrepreneur, after their business hours, for
charging purpose. The entrepreneur charges 4 to 5 rs per light from vendors, which

is very minimal cost and vendors are happy to use and pay. We have measured the
success of this model on the basis of increasing demand in the same market and
finally there are 50 vendors in the particular market place in the city of Patna,
using green technology for their lighting solution.
This opportunity has also helped entrepreneur to earn some extra livelihood and
enhance his household income whereas other members of community are happy
that they have some better lighting solution at very minimal cost, apart from
traditional, costly and hazardous options like kerosene, diesel generators and gas
petromax. The best part of the model is that the members of community trust the
entrepreneur as he is selected from the same community.

Project Description
The project will be implemented as sole proprietary and along with collaboration
with local NGOs and research centres, NGOs which focused on improving the
livelihoods of people in the informal sector. The project began in Ahemdabad in July
2015 and was evaluated in December-January 2015-16, after six months of
literature review, analysis of plan feasibility and monitoring data collection will be
done. The secondary data will collect by the authors and an Indian survey company
specializing in social science research, MORSEL India. At this time, primary
research in Ahemdabad will be done to understand the prospective of the vendors,
demand requirements, market acceptability, and financial feasibility of the project.
Survey will be going to conduct in different areas of Ahemdabad so as to identify
the need based geographic regions. All of them were surveyed for a baseline
analysis.
The questionnaire will be designed in such a way that it will broadly cover the
market feasibility, financial feasibility, paying capability of the customers, economic
viability, and social impact and will also find major short comes and try to find gaps
in the prevalent market. Questions related to the requirement of after service and
technical aspects will also be included. Primary research will also include the
problems of the vendors not opting for solar options and hurdles in getting benefit
of the solar subsidies given by government, so that it will help in my product
development which, in future will also include the service to guide the street
vendors about the bureaucratic process and help in making the process easier and
less hectic for them.

Once the data collection will be done, the feasibility of the project will be assessed
based on the data collection and its analysis. Before primary research according to
me, Nidan model can be replicated but the actual feasibility of that can only be
validated after primary research and so the model may need changes according to
local requirements. The financing means can also be varied with the certain local
needs like we can go for crowd funding, community funding, microfinance funding
etc.
The main aim of the project is to provide best energy solutions to the vendors at
cheapest rate, which help in their own sales and uplift their social and economic
status. Many street vendors are not able to run their business in night time after 7
PM because of unavailability of light on their stall or they have to pay large sum of
money to local battery provider. The project will work on these problems and will
try to come up with a better and cheaper solution for the vendors. Project will also
include microfinance institution and other NGOs to understand the root problem of
the hawkers and design a appropriate financial model for them.

Vision Statement
To provide green energy solution to the street vendors and small shop owners, with
innovative financing solutions, to uplift their economic condition and enable them
to contribute substantially in Indias GDP in eco-friendly manner.

Mission Statement
The mission of the project will be to fulfil basic energy requirements for the street
hawkers and small shop owners in the areas where the solar market has not picked
and increase its reach to the lowest level like in the weekly haat of villages. The
mission is to provide solar energy solutions which are accessible, affordable and
easily available.

Values
Green Energy
Affordable energy solution for poor
Market penetration till the remotest location

Goals
Short term goals

Long Term goals

Market Research
Primary Research will be done to know the customers and their profile and to
understand their specific needs. The research will also include their paying
capacity and willingness to pay monthly or annually for the long term solar
solution and stay away from daily local battery supplier or monthly local
municipality electricity bills. A primary and secondary research will also be done
for the solar panels and solar electric devices suppliers.

Differentiation
What is new in the project like financing solution & mkt penetration.

Sales
Sales process
Specific steps

Sales cycle

Operation plan
Day to day operation activities.

HR Strategy
Total no. of people required, training etc

Financial Plan

Summary