Grameen Shakti( gshakti – GS ), a member of the Grameen family was incorporated in 1996, as a not for profit company to promote, develop and popularize renewable energy technologies in remote, rural areas of Bangladesh. Grameen Shakti ( GS ) envisages a future where rural households of Bangladesh, would have access to environment friendly and pollution free energy at affordable costs |
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| Grameen Shakti Programs At a Glance 2006 : |
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| | | Incorporated | | 1996 | | Number of district covered | | 64 out of 64 districts | | Number of upazila covered | | 400 upazila (sub district) out of 464 | | Number of villages covered | | 25,000 villages | | Number of island coveredc | | 11 islands | | Total beneficiaries | | More than 700,000 people | | Unit office | | 227 | | Total employee | | 1135 (mostly engineers) | | Total installation of SHS | | 77,000 | | Installed power capacity | | 3.85 MW | | Daily power generation capacity | | 16 MW-hr | | Installation rate | | Over 2000 SHS/ month | | Installation of micro utility system | | 1000 system | | Installation of biogas plant | | 500 (Up to October 2006) | | Number of trained technician | | 2,075 technicians | | Number of trained customer | | 43,115 users | | Number of full payee customer | | 20,000 customers | | User under maintenance agreement | | 1,314 customers | | Number of LED installed | | 10,485 lamps | | Future plan- total installation of SHS by 2007 | | 130,000 SHS | | Future plan- biogas plant installation by 2010 | | 200,000 plants |
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| Keys to Success : |
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At present , Grameen Shakti ( GS ) is one of the largest and fastest growing renewable energy technologies to reach the rural people. It has successfully developed a market based approach. The basis of Grameen Shakti’s success is an innovative system for financing the solar home systems by villagers. This system is based on experiences from Grameen Bank’s micro-credit program. Other key factors include, linking renewable energy technologies with income generating activities, and providing efficient services at the local level through renewable energy entrepreneurs. Simultaneously, communities are motivated through awareness raising campaigns to establish new renewable energy businesses and create employment opportunities. GS also focuses on developing and pilot testing innovative approaches to reach the rural people with renewable energy technologies such as micro-utility model, community based biogas plants, innovative payment methodologies including payment through slurry, supply of livestock on credit to make biogas plants feasible. |
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| The Key factors can be summarized as follows: |
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| | | | Ownership Model in which individuals take responsibilities to lower risk and maximize benefits | | | No direct subsidies but soft loans for lowering costs | | | Appropriate program design bridging the gap between most up to date modern technologies and the rural communities | | | Motivation and community involvement | | | Ensuring quality services at the local level | | | Developing innovative financial and technical packages to take up to date technology to the rural communities and reach low income groups | | | Continuous research and development to bring down costs | | | Training the staff to carry out multiple tasks and be social engineers dedicated to serving the people | | | Maximizing income and product diversification by linking appropriate technologies with income generation | | | Understanding target market | | | Effective monitoring from bottom up and continuous feed back between Head Office and the field | | | Developing renewable energy entrepreneurs at the rural level to reach the rural people with diversified services at minimum costs. |
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