Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, after assuming office in Kerala a southern state of India, kicked up a storm by publicly supporting the Athirappilly hydro electric project which would create ecologic imbalance in the area and destroy the Athirappilly waterfall, the largest natural waterfalls in the state, if implemented.
India is the world’s sixth largest energy consumer, accounting for 3.4 per cent of global energy consumption. Federal governments in India, and the central government for that matter, are unable to bear the huge infrastructural cost required to bring electricity to remote villages.
Erecting electric posts and electric lines require huge investments that could cost millions of dollars.
While Kerala has attained almost 100 per cent electrical coverage, many parts of India still remain in the dark. For a large portion of the Indian population, electricity to this day remains a distant dream.
Arun and Anoop George are two siblings who want to make India’s energy crisis a thing of the past. The duo has developed a new solution they say will not even slightly impact the ecological balance.
Avant Garde Innovations, the startup founded by siblings, designed a home wind turbine just around the size of a ceiling fan. According to The Times of India, the turbine can generate around 5 kWh/kW per day,which they say is enough to power a house for a lifetime., with just a one-time cost of US$750.
“When small wind turbine generating 1kW energy costs INR 3-7 lakh (US$4,000-10,000), our company plans to sell it at less than NR 50,000 (about US$750). Costs will decrease further through mass production,” Arun said in an interview to The Times of India.
“Our goal is to eliminate energy poverty, reduce dependence on struggling state power grids and create energy self sufficiency for all the needy ones through distributed, localised and affordable renewable energy. In doing so, we believe we can collectively usher in our world a cleaner environment, new economic prosperity and social change,”
“Our first offering is a highly affordable small wind turbine suitable for residential, commercial, agricultural, village electrification and other uses, which is aimed for a market launch during 2016.”
Incorporated in 2015, Avant Garde claims to be a startup with a ‘green’ heart and soul.
The company launched its pilot project at a church in the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram in January this year. The small wind turbine prototype that it has developed is highly scalable for power capacities of 300 kW or even higher, Arun told e27.
“Our passionate aim is to introduce innovative, affordable and sustainable solutions that take renewable energy self sufficiency and energy empowerment to the next level through a distributed and decentralized approach using pioneering strategies the world has not witnessed yet,”
This revolutionary product has also won them a spot in the Top 20 Cleantech Innovations in India. The company has also made it to the list of 10 clean energy companies from India for the “UN Sustainable Energy For All” initiative under the one billion dollar clean energy investment opportunity directory.
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According to the Global Wind Energy Council, the country ranks 4th in terms of global installed wind power capacity, after China, the US, and Germany.
With this solution hopefully, Kerala can keep the Athirappilly waterfalls untouched.
Accessible and affordable electricity is a major global issue. 1.3 billion people are completely without electricity, and over 800 million people depend on generators for power which are high in pollution and cost.
With more and more people creating cost effective and self sustainable solutions we can not only provide power to those in need but we can reduce overall costs of electricity and eliminate pollution and other harmful environmental impacts that our current systems create.
Wow, very inspiring project. Hope more people can read this.