Husk Power Systems

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Husk Power Systems, founded in 2008, is a company based in Fort Collins, Colorado, that provides clean energy services to off-grid or weak grid rural communities in East Africa, West Africa and South Asia, primarily by building renewable energy mini-grids/micro-grids. Its original technology generated electricity using a biomass gasifier that created fuel from rice husks, a waste product of rice hullers that separate the husks as chaff from the rice, a staple food in both Asia and Africa. In the mid-2010s, with the rapid decline in the price of solar PV and batteries, Husk pivoted its business model[1][2] to focus more on solar-plus-storage mini-grids (what at the time Husk coined "mini power plants"), while continuing to use biomass in combination with solar to serve communities with larger electricity demand. In 2021, Husk Power was recognized in the REN21 Renewables Global Status Report as the first mini-grid company to achieve significant scale, by surpassing 100 solar hybrid community mini-grids, and 5,000 small business customers.[3] In 2022, Husk signed an Energy Compact with the United Nations, in which it set a target of building 5,000 mini-grids and connecting 1 million customers by 2030.[4]

Husk Power has raised around $40 million in equity from investors. In 2018, it raised a Series C totaling $20 million[5] from Shell Technology Ventures, Swedfund International and Engie Rassembleurs d'Energies, with FMO coming in later with an additional $5 million.[6] Other investors have included The Rockefeller Foundation, Acumen, US International Development Finance Corp. and First Solar.

The company was co-founded by Manoj Sinha (currently CEO), Gyanesh Pandey, Ratnesh Yadav, and Chip Ransler, and the Chairman of the Board is Brad Mattson.

Need[]

According to the World Bank, about 800 million people worldwide have no access to electricity,[7] with the majority of those people located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Millions of people die each year as a result of indoor air pollution caused by the combustion of traditional fuels used for cooking, heat and light.[8] The largest population without electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa, 85 million people, is Nigeria, where both businesses and households are not connected to the electric grid, and even those who are connected often receive erratic service due to the lack of generating capacity.[8] This scenario is repeated across Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Southeast and South Asia and island states. The World Bank adds that mini-grids have the potential to serve 490 million people globally, and that achieving such scale would require 210,000 mini-grids and $220 billion.[9] Currently, the industry has attracted $5 billion, with 19,000 mini-grids built.

Concept[]

Current CEO and co-founder Manoj Sinha, named one of the Global Energy Elites in 2022[10] for his pioneering work, was responsible for evolving Husk's approach to take advantage of the steep decline in solar prices. By adding solar to biomass, Husk was able to provide 24/7 100% renewable energy to its customers, using solar during daytime, and biomass and batteries at night. According to a Harvard Business School Case Study: "From 2007 through 2013, Husk built 80 biomass waste (primarily rice husk from rice mills) plants that provided electricity to 250,000 villagers and shop owners spread across 350 villages in India and Africa. By 2015, Husk underwent a major pivot. Rather than a rural electrification vision aimed at providing power to rural households through biomass gasification alone, Sinha envisioned plants organized around village commercial customers that used biomass gasification, solar energy, and battery power in tandem, allowing for power generation nearly 24-7. To bring this vision to reality, Sinha ceased operations of nearly all of the existing plant locations and began the conversion to new locations built around the 'new' hybrid plant. Thus in 2015, Husk was operating a mere 10 power plants and serving roughly 2,000 customers, down from the 80 plants and roughly 250,000 customers they had prior to this shift."[2]

Founding CEO Gyanesh Pandey, an electrical engineer who graduated from Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi and then earned a master's at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, left a job in the United States and returned to India. There he worked with Ratnesh Yadav on business ideas to serve the needs of the poor in India, with their initial unsuccessful ideas including the development of solar-powered lights and the use of jatropha seeds to create biodiesel fuel. After a chance meeting with a gasifier salesman, the two conceived of using rice husks, the unused detritus of the rice hulling process, as an input source.[11] Estimates are that 1.8 billion kilograms (4 billion pounds) of rice husks are left over from rice processing in Bihar each year and almost all of it had previously been used unproductively as there had been no uses identified for it. Pandey focused on the development of the circuitry that would allow the systems to most efficiently generate power, working with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to optimize the gasifier to use rice husks alone, then using the output of the gasifier to fuel a generator and assembling a crude local power distribution network that they built for the village of Tamkuha, which went live in August 2007.[8]

Application[]

Husk Power serves the rural energy economy, with mini-grids at the center of the company's business model. It serves both completely rural off-grid areas, which have in the past only been able to use diesel generation to power their businesses and livelihoods, as well as weak grid areas where the main grid (distribution companies or power utilities often referred to as "Discoms" in India, and "Discos" in Nigeria) provide unreliable and poor quality connections.

Most of the units developed by the company generate 32 kilowatts of electricity from 50 kilograms (110 lb) of husks per hour, enough to provide the basic needs of a village of about 500, though there are several systems with higher generating capacity. The rice husks used to fuel the process are purchased from local rice mills for under one rupee per kilogram.[12] The cost of the service is about 80 rupees (less than US$2) per month, about half the cost of the kerosene that most villagers use to power lamps that provide far less light than the CFL bulbs distributed by the company.

Local residents are employed to feed rice husks into the converter, to collect payments in advance and to monitor the electricity usage by customers, who are typically allocated enough electricity to each home for several hours each evening to power two 15-watt compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and to recharge their cell phones. Additional power could be purchased to power appliances that used more power than the basic allotment.[8]

Impact[]

Each plant serves hundreds of customers, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), households and institutions such as schools and health clinics. Village life can go beyond daylight hours with Husk Power Systems. Businesses can now stay open later which promotes economic development. Students can also use the electricity generated to study into the night. Each plant provides jobs for locals which creates opportunities to local farmers and entrepreneurs.[13]

Finance[]

The company has worked to simplify the units and make them more resource efficient. Charred rice husks and ash, largely consisting of silica, is removed from the system using a hand-operated crank. It can be used for fertilizer or to make cement blocks, as well as being the raw material to create incense sticks.[14] Agents hired by the firm to collect payments from customers for electricity also sell CFL bulbs, as well as other home staples that help add to their bottom line. To increase the efficiency of collecting funds, the company is developing a smart card reader that would cost about $7 per home.[8]

Two other members of the team, Charles "Chip" Ransler and Manoj Sinha, then students at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, developed a business plan that earned $60,000 from social innovation competitions sponsored by Darden and by the University of Texas.[15] In 2009, the company won an inaugural global business plan competition sponsored by venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Cisco Systems and will receive a $250,000 investment from the two firms to help improve the basic technology that the firm has already developed. The company has since received two rounds of financing from the Shell Foundation.[8]

Service area[]

As of 2021, Husk Power Systems has more than 110 operational renewable energy mini-grids in India, located in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Solar PV serves customers during the day, with biomass providing up to eight hours of power, primarily during the evening hours.[16][17] Battery power is available for nighttime use. The company is looking into developing a training program that would help foster the skills needed to expand the market and to offer a franchising method, whereby local entrepreneurs would operate systems built by the company. The company is also planning further expansion to other countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, where the combination of power shortages in rural areas and availability of ample sunshine and/or waste rice husks make the generating systems an effective solution.[16]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Husk Power - Case - Faculty & Research - Harvard Business School". www.hbs.edu. Retrieved 2021-09-30.
  2. ^ a b "Husk Power: Scaling the Venture - Case - Faculty & Research - Harvard Business School". www.hbs.edu. Retrieved 2021-09-30.
  3. ^ "Renewables Global Status Report" (PDF). Renewables Global Status Report: 170. 2021 – via REN21.
  4. ^ Nations, United. "Energy Compacts Registry". United Nations. Retrieved 2022-01-24.
  5. ^ "Shell Technology Ventures Leads $20 Million Investment in Minigrid Specialist Husk". www.greentechmedia.com. Retrieved 2021-09-30.
  6. ^ "Project detail - HUSK POWER SYSTEMS, INC. - FMO". www.fmo.nl. Retrieved 2021-09-30.
  7. ^ Staff." https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/energy/overview#1World Bank, 2019.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Borenstein, David. "A Light in India", The New York Times, January 10, 2011. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  9. ^ "Mini Grids for Half a Billion People: Market Outlook and Handbook for Decision Makers". World Bank. Retrieved 2022-01-24.
  10. ^ "MANOJ SINHA". Global Power And Energy Elites. Retrieved 2022-01-24.
  11. ^ Revkin, Andrew C. "Husk Power for India", The New York Times, December 24, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  12. ^ Staff.Empowering Bihar, Greenpeace India Society, October 2010. Accessed January 12, 2011.
  13. ^ "Community Impact". Husk Power Systems. Archived from the original on 2015-02-20. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
  14. ^ Anderson, Sara D."Husk Power Systems: Rice-Fired Electricity", Fast Company (magazine), December 1, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  15. ^ Staff. "Powering Villages from Rice Husks Wins Business Plan Competition", UVA Today, May 6, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  16. ^ a b Nerenberg, Jenara."Husk Power Systems Wants to Lead 'a Revolution in Electricity'", Fast Company (magazine), January 5, 2011. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  17. ^ Staff."Rice husk power to light up villages", The Hindu, July 26, 2010. Retrieved January 12, 2011.

External links[]

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