Inside India’s energy access revolution: Mind the gap

For decades, India has carried the infamous badge to be home to the world’ largest population deprived of modern forms of energy – both electricity and cooking. But India is rapidly breaking away from that reality. As per official statistics, more than 99 per cent willing households in India have an electricity connection, and close to 90 per cent of Indian households have an LPG connection. Over the last 16 months, India provided electricity connections to 50,000 households on average, every single day. In less than three years, 70 million subsidized LPG connections have been provided. The pace of change is unprecedent, globally. However, is energy access only about connections?

To uncover the nuances and multidimensionality of energy access, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), along with ISEP and National University of Singapore, conducted a panel survey of more than 9,000 households, tracking them over three years. Based on the findings from the largest panel data on multidimensional energy access in India, the discussion will cover the realities of energy access in India as experienced by the end-users, its evolution, the gap between connections and sustained use, the challenge of reliability, affordability, awareness, and the role of intra-household decision-making dynamics in influencing energy access.