Switching ON – energy solutions for India

Research project for Legrand, at the Helen Hamlyn Centre about access to energy in developping countries.

The concept developed is a safe and reliable solution. It is a small energy hub for a household. It only has a light bulb and a socket for people to charge their mobile phones. It has a power limiter so it will only use a tiny amount of power. More people using less power also means less blackouts, that plague today’s India.

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video:

Switching ON – Creating energy solutions for India – research video – Helen Hamlyn Research Centre – Legrand from Arthur Schmitt on Vimeo.

Access to reliable energy has far-reaching effects for social inclusion, with low-income communities most at risk across the world. In developing countries, safe and affordable energy services can be a powerful tool for improving basic education or health services whilst giving the individual a chance for entrepreneurship and income generation. For example, with a light, a fruit vendor can sell later into the night; with a dehydrator, a tomato farmer can make sun-dried tomatoes, a year-long, high value product.

But 70 per cent of people in the developing world still have no access to electricity in their homes, health clinics or schools. India has more people without adequate access to energy than any other country. Despite extensive government spending on a large-scale electrification, half of all Indian households in lower income communities lack access to the grid. This project sought to understand local needs and create scenarios and solutions that allow these communities better access to energy and more control over their powered environments.

Those people, living in very simple houses need a lighting solution that can be used in a multiple different ways as they will need it to do their daily chores, cook, read, walk or play. Connected directly to the electrical grid, the ‘hook plug light’ becomes their source of power. It also has a socket for a mobile phone to be charged, to encourage small entrepreneurship. It is limited in power by a circuit breaker so it answers only people’s basic needs and removes the need for metering.

Its thread at the rear allows it to be screwed on a plastic bottle filled with sand or rocks for a more permanent fixture. Its shape voluntarily leave space for Jugaad, the Indian inventiveness. People will adapt it to suit their own needs.

Concepts created range from a ‘hook plug’ that enables light fixtures to be hung anywhere to a micro-metering system that enables small communities to manage their energy use better. Interestingly, such ideas could in time become more relevant to the developed world. As the price of energy rises and fossil fuels become scarce, energy poverty is expected to increase dramatically everywhere. Concepts arising from this study could therefore have relevance for both extremes of the energy spectrum.

The ‘Hook plug light’ was exhibited in the London Design Week 2009.