I am working on a research paper on rural electrification in India and today I have been looking at the Indian state of Assam (in red on the map below). Fewer than 20% of the households in Assam are electrified and significantly fewer than 75% of the villages there are electrified. It is in the top five states of India with the lowest amount of electricity in rural areas. With nearly 27 million people (that's more people than Texas) it is India's 14th most populated state.
The question is why are so many people in this part of India without power? To provide a rough idea, I took a look at the wikipedia page on Assam and took out some key points of interest.
- Connected to the rest of India through a narrow strip in West Bangal, the Siliguri Corridor -which is flood and cyclone prone
- The climate is characterized by heavy monsoon downpours reducing summer temperature and foggy nights and mornings in winter. Heavy monsoons and frequent mild earthquakes
- The river Brahmaputra flows through it to Bangladesh
- Has
coal, natural gas, and petroleum resources. Supplies 25% of India's petroleum needs,
- Lots of protected
forests and national parks, home to 2 UNESCO sights, it is one of the richest biodiversity spots in the world with its tropical rainforests
- Terrorism from separatist group and ethnic strife.
The terrorism from the separatist group and the flood and cyclone prone SIliguri Corridor make building large amounts of transmission infrastructure to connect Assam to the not-really-existing grid in the rest of India impossible. But that's not too surprising as the continental United States is not served by one fully connected electrical grid either. The heavy monsoons in the summer and foggy mornings in the winter are horrible for photovoltaic or solar thermal power. The river could be dammed, but it would significantly effect Indian/Bengali relations, destroy one of the most biodiverse parts of the world, be a huge terrorist target, and one of the earthquakes could weaken the structural integrity of the dam and significantly decrease its lifespan if not outright destroy it.
While it is rich in fossil fuel resources, any further exploitation of these would have to proceed with extreme care so as to avoid spills and other forms of environmental contamination. Wild-life tourism to the region is a big part of its economy so resource extraction would have to be balanced against that. Also as Assam is not as wealthy as other regions on India, it would make more sense to export any fuel resources they extract from the region to fetch a higher price.
Industry is growing in the region, but village scale agriculture still dominates the economy and share of the workforce. It may be possible to provide electricity to the residents if they were to move out of the villages and into new city centers. This would make centralized power systems and grids more economically efficient as well as less environmentally damaging as it would cut down on transmission needs. Fossil fuel use in the region would likely grow as a result, using the extracted resources, putting more pressure on the natural areas from miners and also degrading their quality through local air pollution.
If Assam were to keep its population rural and its economy agriculturally based, their best shot at electrification may be small scale wind coupled with biofuel generators that can make electricity out of waste agricultural products. These smaller solutions may be best suited for the region as they are less susceptible to damage during earthquakes, may be moved during the monsoon and are less of a target for terrorists.
But if farms in Assam do not generate much waste products, their may be pressure to encroach on the UNESCO sites and other semi-pristine environments to harvest materials to burn. Also, Assam has frequent afternoon thunderstorms which may mean that there is some good winds blowing at low heights, but it may be too intense and thus unsuitable for small-scale wind turbine use. Of course, more studies would need to go into looking at local wind potential before you can determine if that is an appropriate technology for the region.
It is possible that Assam's energy security may be one day guaranteed through an as of yet unproven technology like river power harnessing technologies that do not change the course of a river or population shifts to cities, but until then Assam will likely stay one of India's poorest regions in terms of energy availability.