In Rural India, Women Take Charge of Renewable Power

At 1.4 billion people, India has the world’s largest population, and it’s the third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter, following China and the United States. Its residents have long grappled with heavy air pollution, tied to the country’s coal-burning power plants, but now they are also bracing for rising energy demand. With that demand expected to grow 35 percent over the next decade, India knows its future prosperity relies on a transition to clean, reliable energy. 

To that end, India has set ambitious climate targets, pledging in the 2015 Paris Agreement that non–fossil fuel power sources would make up half of the installed electricity capacity by 2030—a goal it reached this summer, five years ahead of schedule. In 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced a goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2070. Since then, India has ramped up decarbonization efforts, such as passing a solar rooftop policy, promoting a transition to electric vehicles, and investing in green hydrogen development. 

But a big challenge remains: bringing up-to-date renewable technology to the most rural parts of this large country. This is tech that helps irrigate crops, prevents pests from eating away at farm yields, and helps keep families cool during life-threatening heat waves. 

“Nearly 60 percent of India’s population lives in rural areas, and access to clean energy in the villages is very, very limited,” says Lata. “We keep talking about the clean energy transition, but how can that transition be just and equitable if we’re not addressing such a large portion of the country?”

While the pollution that any one household emits is minimal, taken together—home after home, village after village, state after state across India—the collective climate emissions cuts would be enormous. 

Typically, a woman in rural India takes on the bulk of domestic work. She gathers fuel and cooks. She raises livestock and grows crops to be eaten by her family or sold at market. She may care for children as well as older relatives. 

And she usually performs this work with limited access to education, health care, land ownership, or financial credit. And as the climate crisis propels more extreme weather—droughts, heat waves, flooding—clean water may be harder to come by, her harvests may falter, and her income may decline. At times, her house may become too hot or her roof may leak. She will essentially be stuck in a loop of worsening conditions, in the fields and at home.

“Even though much of the household-related tasks are traditionally performed by women, oftentimes they have little say in choices in the home,” Lata says. The Green Village initiative seeks to change that. “It only made sense to consult with the people who were bearing the brunt of the labor and impacts,” she continues.

Take the use of traditional cookstoves, called chulhas, which typically burn biomass, like firewood or dung cakes, and emit hazardous pollutants, including carbon monoxide, methane, and particulate matter. Over the long-term, breathing in those fumes, especially in poorly ventilated homes, can lead to heart and lung disease and premature death. 

Indeed, the World Health Organization estimates that indoor air pollution kills about 3.2 million people each year. Women face the gravest risks, since they tend to do most of the cooking, as do small children, who often stay inside the home alongside their mothers.

Switching to biogas for cooking significantly improves air quality in the home while simultaneously avoiding a near constant search for firewood, which is a strain on the women and local forests alike.

Cool roof technologies are another boon to health that the initiative brings to rural India, where heat waves have been known to strike with temperatures as high as 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Cool roofs help bring relief by not only reflecting sunlight and improving a home’s energy efficiency but also preventing leaks and water damage. 

On top of their labor inside the home, women play a huge role in India’s agriculture sector, with 73 percent of the rural female workforce engaging in this work in some capacity. These include women like Bharti ben Vishnu Vaghela, who lives with her parents and six siblings in Mehlao village in Gujarat. Bharti ben’s family income relies on farmwork—irrigating fields, tilling the soil, and guarding the crops from pests. Carrying out these duties manually takes a lot of time and physical energy.

Enter the Green Village initiative, which introduces various solar technologies to farmers. Solar-powered electric fences, for instance, help prevent damage to crops caused by wildlife—anything from monkeys to cattle to elephants. 

And Bharti ben now saves 90 hours a month on irrigation, thanks to a new solar precision irrigation system that improved her crop yields, cut down on water usage, and bypassed the need to till the soil before planting. And her new solar trap light reduces the use of toxic pesticides, to the benefit of the crops, the environment, and the health of her family. Meanwhile, inside the Vaghela home, portable solar lanterns have brought more consistent lighting during power outages and the ability to see potential hazards, such as snakes, at night. 

Anticipating a potential glitch with introducing all this new equipment to areas where there’s little access to technological support, the initiative trains women to do simple maintenance and repairs themselves. Armed with the expertise to manage these energy systems, these women become in charge of their own work. 

In the Green Village initiative’s early days, Lata recalls the staff spending a lot of effort explaining to villagers why these upgrades are necessary. “Climate change is not their priority. Deploying clean energy interventions is not their priority. Carbon emissions are not their priority,” she explains. “Their priority is making a decent livelihood and getting three meals on the table every day.” 

Villagers pay for the equipment themselves. And because they have limited savings, they need to see that these investments will pay off. So, earning trust and demonstrating how these technologies could enhance women’s lives and incomes have been paramount to the initiative's success. Still, finding the right financing plan can be a hurdle. 

That’s why NRDC India, a subsidiary of NRDC, works to ensure federal subsidies are available to rural households and then figures out how villagers can best take advantage of them. SEWA staffers help villagers apply for the subsidies and acquire micro-payment loans. These small-dollar loans are available for people who can’t otherwise qualify for traditional lending and, because the amounts are low, offer more affordable interest rates and loan terms.  

On the national front, a government policy that decentralizes renewable power development would also be helpful. This would decrease overall dependency on unreliable transmission grids while improving energy access for more remote areas. Promoting local energy development could also boost village economies, create jobs, and lower energy costs.  

Meanwhile, negotiations for bulk pricing on clean tech are also underway. “The more demand there is, the more bargaining power we have with companies,” says Lata. “And since we work with so many villages, there is a very good chance for us to reduce the prices.”

In its partnership with Energy Efficiency Services Limited, for example, the Green Village initiative was able to offer households a discounted appliance bundle that included LED bulbs, a fan, and a solar lantern. 

And even more collaborations—with the government, local organizations, banks, and vendors—will be necessary to fully integrate green technology in rural India. After all, every aspect of village life must be considered: occupations, transportation, education, health, and living expenses. And for rural women, this goes far beyond lower energy bills. It’s about breaking through cultural and gender barriers and finally having a say in their own homes. “So there is still much more to be done,” says Lata.