Low-Cost Lamps Light Rural India - 阅读测试答案

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That all changed with the installation of low-cost, energy-efficient lamps that are powered entirely by the sun. The lights were installed by the Grameen Surya Bijli Foundation (GSBF), an Indian non-governmental organisation focused on bringing light to rural India. Some 100,000 Indian villages do not yet have electricity.

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In a scenario in which nearly 60 per cent of India’s rural population uses 180 million tons of biomass per year for cooking via primitive wood stoves

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India’s Rural Electrification Corporation, says the Indian government recognises the potential of LED lighting powered by solar technology, but expressed reservations about its high costs.

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Those connected to the grid have to face power cuts up to 6 or 7 hours a day. Constant energy shortages and blackouts are a common problem due to a lack of power plants, transmission, and distribution losses caused by old technology and illegal stealing of electricity from the grid..

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LED lighting, like cell phones, is another example of a technology whose low cost could allow the rural poor to leap into the 21st century.

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LED lamps, or more specifically white LEDs, are believed to produce nearly 200 times more useful light than a kerosene lamp and almost 50 times the amount of useful light of a conventional bulb.

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However, the remote locations of the village will make reaching this goal difficult. A. K. Lakhina, the chairman of India’s Rural Electrification Corporation, says the Indian government recognises the potential of LED lighting powered by solar technology, but expressed reservations about its high costs.

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If manufactured locally, the cost of his LED lamp could plummet to $22, as they will not incur heavy import duties. “We need close to $5 million for this,” he says. Mr. Chaddha says he has also asked the government to exempt the lamps from such duties, but to no avail.

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“Its luminosity and life will diminish if you let the dust settle on it,” he warns them.

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when their monthly fuel quota of four litres dried up in just a fortnight, they had to strain their eyes using the light from a cooking fire.

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As many as 1.5 billion people - nearly 80 million in India alone - light their houses using kerosene as the primary lighting media. The fuel is dangerous, dirty, and - despite being subsidised - consumes nearly four per cent of a typical rural Indian household’s budget.

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LED systems are revolutionising rural lighting, but this isn’t a magic solution to the world’s energy problems,” says Ashok Jhunjhunwala, head of the electrical engineering department at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

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An entrepreneur who made his money in plastics, Chaddha, has poured his own money into the project, providing the initial installations free of charge

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The rural markets would be able to afford it, says Mr. Irvine-Halliday, if they had access to microcredit.