Access to energy should be a right.

During one of our field visits to the rural parts of India, we got first-hand experiences in where the problems lie. Yvo explains: ‘I met a man. He was a farmer and he had invested in a rudimentary but pragmatic irrigation system powered by 6 big solar panels. I asked him what happened to the energy when he was not using his irrigation system. The man frowned and discarded the thought of utilising it for something else. The solar panels were meant to power the irrigation system and he was considering to use it for something else, at least he did not know that. Meanwhile, neighbours were lighting their kerosene stoves to prepare dinner…'

Energy Bazaar aims to replace these kerosene stoves with the excess energy left with households such as this farmer. This will be realised using a transparent, trustable, and easy to adapt energy exchange system. The deployment of the project would help cater the rising demand of the millions of Indians, where their income will soon allow for significant energy consumption. In the context of the Paris agreements and the energy transition to sustainability, these people will play an important role in combating climate change and maintaining the progressive march into a better future. 

We believe and thus aim to realise that access to energy should be a right. It demands organisation, collaboration and education. The responsibility for guiding those who are on the verge of energy-access into sustainable consumption lies not only with the farmer, the blacksmith and the nurse in rural India. It also lies with the government, the academic and the industrial sector. Thus, energy bazaar comes into the picture of bringing them all together.