Acumen Fund

Rural Electrification from Rice Husks

Husk Power Systems uses innovative biomass technology to convert abundant rice husks into energy that provides power to Indian villages.

In rural India, 56% of households remain un-electrified, with at least 125,000 Indian villages (representing 375M people) presently not electrified, and at least 25,000 declared "economically impossible" to reach via conventional means. Indeed, an 'electrified' village is defined as one with grid connectivity to only 10% of households and does not fully capture the poor quality, nor the unreliability.
The electrification of rural India has been extremely uneven, leaving 80% to 90% of poorer states in India's "Rice Belt," like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa without electricity.
Villages in this region currently use kerosene lanterns for household light and diesel generators for irrigation and commercial power, which are costly and destructive to health and environment.

Husk Power Systems (HPS) uses novel biomass gasification technology to convert abundant rice husks into combustible gases, which then drive a generator to produce clean, safe and efficient electricity at affordable rates. These rice husks have no economic value and have previously been left to rot in fields, releasing harmful methane into the atmosphere.
A plant is installed along with low-voltage insulated wiring to each household, business, or farm, with HPS charging subscription fees to each user according to the number and type of the electrical appliances they own.
Husk Power has developed a model for selling the idea of biomass mini-grid electrification to village panchayats, and installing and operating the system in a way that benefits everyone involved, from farmers who can now sell their rice husks, to the households and businesses that can enjoy electric power for the first time, to the community members that gain employment at the plant.

By the end of 2010, Husk Power aims to operate 50 plants, electrifying 125 villages. Their goal is to be the global provider of off-grid electrification services using biomass, with a long-term vision of deploying 2000 plants, which will reach 5,000 villages (more than 20 million people) and create 6,000 jobs.