Diffusion Of Clean Energy Products In Rural Areas Of India A Case Study Of Odisha

Abstract

newline ABSTRACT newlineWorldwide less than 1 billion people did not have access to electricity and 2.7 billion newlinepeople could not get clean cooking energy by the end of March 2017 (REN21, 2019). newlineBulk of such people lived in developing countries of Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. newlineIndia alone had 168 million people without electricity and 703 million people without newlineclean energy for cooking (ibid). newlineAmount of clean energy use, economic development of a country and quality of life of newlinecitizens are closely linked. Further extent of cleanliness of primary energy and the newlinetransformation process followed have significant environmental consequences in the newlineform of global warming. Hence, there is a need to shift to low carbon clean energy in newlinethe energy transformation and value system. Such a system calls for availability of right newlinetype of clean energy, right product, process technology, affordability of users and newlineappropriate institutions. newlineIn rural areas where clean energy poverty is high, diffusion of clean energy products newlinewill be possible by addressing the issues of information dissemination, availability, newlinefinancing, affordability, serviceability and creating income generation opportunities. newlineConsidering the fact that there are few studies about the required actors and factors for newlinediffusion of clean energy offerings in rural areas, the present study takes an ecosystem newlineapproach to study diffusion of clean energy products in the rural areas of India. newlineGlobalisation and privatisation has swept the rural market in India. Rural area is newlineflooded with use and throw type cheap products without any services. Rural people also newlineseek right value for what they buy. With saturation in urban areas, competition for newlinereaching rural consumers is becoming stiff. Accordingly, marketing for rural consumers newlineis becoming more challenging. A review of existing literature on rural marketing and newlinecharacteristics of rural consumer provides input for rural centric model for clean energy diffusion. An action research method of partial interventions in the ecosystem and ass