Nagaland has good scope in the field of renewable energy to meet current requirements, including for those of small townships, model farms and remote villages rapidly coming up. This was asserted by Velu-o Shijo, joint director of State Institute of Rural Development while addressing a business meet on development of potential renewable energy projects in the state of Nagaland. The conclave was held at Hotel Japfu under the aegis of Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and Nagaland Renewable Energy Development Agency (NREDA).

“The need of the hour for development of potential renewable energy project and successful implementation and utilization, the project machineries shall have to be eco-friendly, low cost and low cost maintenance,” the joint director said.

Admitting renewable energy to be an apt case especially in a hilly region like Nagaland, he focused on building excellence in teaching, research and extension in the energy sector for sustainable rural development. According to Shijo, the mission should also focus on establishing conservation technologies.

Towards this end, he said, the objectives should be establishing centers of excellence in academic activities, research, design, development and deployment of energy technologies for the rural areas. This should be alongside educating the public, students and practitioners on renewable energy and energy conservations. Further, consultancy assignments in connection with auditing, energy management and energy education in different sectors should be instated. Assessment on the availability of energy resources in rural areas and undertaking renewable energy and energy conservation projects with concerned ministries and agencies should be another focus, he said.

“We may have to assess the quality, reliability and affordable energy for promoting economic and social development in the rural areas,” Shijo said. He said the critical energy situation in rural India is characterized by low fuel quality, low efficiency of use, low availability of supply and limited assets and lower productivity of land, water and human efforts. These factors ultimately lead to low quality of life and environmental degradation, he said.

According to him, “dependence on biomass (fuel wood, crops residue, cattle dung) and traditional cook stoves with low efficiency which emits smoke in the kitchen, leads to low quality of life for most rural women”. Comparatively, he said, dependence on kerosene and weak lamps for lighting with uncertain supply of the fuel leads to low quality and intermittent lighting.

It is characterized by, Shijo said, “Dependence on centralized grid electricity supply and low-load rural situation, fluctuation voltage, unreliable supply and shortage of power in most part of rural areas, coal based electric power plants also leads to environmental degradation (air, water and soil pollution). Greenhouse gas effect build-up also leads to climatic change”. The joint director emphasized on the need to search for decentralized and renewable energy based options to meet the rural energy needs in a sustainable way in the state.

Shijo urged the business meet to focus on development of appropriate energy planning models for sustainable rural development, rural renewable energy for separate development, energy conservation and energy efficiency in any rural industries.


Source - MorungExpress