As part of this project, researchers developed an Energy Atlas – an interactive and publicly available online resource allowing investors, entrepreneurs and policy makers to access and explore household fuel consumption and expenditure data across India and the urban-rural divide.
Background
India’s impressive economic growth has spurred a story of urgent energy demand and need for greater energy inclusion. According to the International Energy Association, over 400 million people in India (36% of the total population) still live without reliable electricity. Over 725 million (70%) rely on biomass cooking fuels like cow dung, wood and farm waste. Against this backdrop, new renewable energy technologies, products, and services have surged to meet the growing energy demands of poor households at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). However, much remains unknown about rural BoP end users.
This study presents the Energy Atlas – the first interactive online resource, complete with explanatory report, which allows investors, entrepreneurs and policy makers to quickly access and explore household fuel consumption and expenditure data across India’s 28 states and the urban-rural divide. The Atlas fills an acknowledged gap by providing access to clean development data on household energy consumption and expenditure. It is publicly available and presents national and state-level household fuel consumption and expenditure data from the National Sample Survey 61st Round (2004-05) in an accessible manner.
Approach
The data that was used to build the Energy Atlas was extracted from the 61st round of the Consumer Expenditure Survey, conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) between July 2004 and June 2005. Data pertaining to household fuel consumption and expenditure were derived from Block 6 (Consumption of fuel and light during the last 30 days) of the Consumer Expenditure Survey. To validate the data presented in the Energy Atlas, selected state and national figures in this publication were compared against corresponding figures independently calculated and published by NSS in Report No. 508 Level and Pattern of Consumer Expenditure, 2004-05 and Report No. 511 Energy Sources of Indian Households for Cooking and Lighting, 2004-0514.
Implications
The Energy Atlas provides a clear and objective visualisation of household-level fuel consumption, with the objective of becoming the go-to platform for users to interrogate and interpret the data. so they may identify relevant patterns, trends, and insights that are most critical to their work.