This document discusses the role of women in renewable energy entrepreneurship in rural villages in India. It notes that reliance on biomass for fuel creates risks that disproportionately impact women, but that renewable energy can improve quality of life by reducing the time needed to meet daily energy needs. Women are well-positioned to become renewable energy entrepreneurs by drawing on social networks to distribute and maintain solar technologies. Examples are given of organizations empowering women as solar engineers and social entrepreneurs developing clean energy solutions. Barriers like lack of training and social norms limiting women's participation must still be addressed to further sustainable energy entrepreneurship opportunities for women.

1. Women Entrepreneurs  Smart Villages
Shailaja Fennell

2. Gender and Energy
• Rural electrification programmes can provide
benefits for women in terms of saving labour
and time, improving health, security and
income (World Bank 2006)
• The reliance on burning biomass- fuelwood,
animal dung and crop waste for household
energy, from collection to use-creates risks
and hardships that fall inordinately on women
(IFAD 2014)

4. Role of renewables for women’s
empowerment
• Renewables hold great potential for improved
quality of life for women because they ease the
time and human energy needed to meet daily
needs while helping to improve indoor air quality.
• Women’s role in energy is so important that we
need women to be involved in energy decision
making. Renewables must be applied in a
culturally sensitive manner and in such a way to
actually meet women’s need.
(GoI, 2013)

6. Women’s Entrepreneurship and
Renewable Energy
• Energy access provides opportunities for
women’s entrepreneurship.
• Women play a critical role in energy provision
and consumption within households and
communities -possess valuable knowledge
relevant to sustainable energy solutions.
• They can draw on their natural circles of family,
friends and community for customers, which has
been shown to be an effective way of distributing
solar technology to rural households
( UN Women, 2016)

7. Dharnai, Bihar, a solar village

8. Women Entrepreneurs in the Energy
Sector
• Women already have a track record of
functioning as effective entrepreneurs -many
visibly successful organizations and networks like
Gramin Shakti, SEWA, TIDE ,AIWC &SELCO)
(All India Womens’ Congress, 2013)
• “Women have a comparative advantage in this
sector of work. The price of renewables has come
down significantly, and if rural women have
access to easy credit via microfinance, then they
can work in the grassroots to drive a change in
energy consumption behaviour on the ground. ”
(Yannick Glenarec, UN Assistant Secretary General,
on India’s energy policy, 2016)

10. Barefoot College and Solar Energy for
India
• Bunker Roy and Barefoot College (starting in the
1990s)-to teach grandmothers from all over the world
how to build solar panels at a 6 month workshop
• After the workshop the grannies go back to their
villages, the villages get solar cells sponsored by the
Indian government and the grannies will be the solar
engineers capable of repairing.
• The principle is that it is a disruptive experience-
empowers these grandmothers-who have never ever
left their village, to travel to a different location (even
country) and train for 6 months (in a language they do
not understand) to become a solar engineer.

13. Innovation and gender empowerment
• Ajaita Shah, 30, began working in Indian villages,
by launching her own company, Frontier Markets,
to bring safe and affordable clean energy to the
northwestern region of Rajasthan (2008)
• Shah who was brought up in the US-is now in
Forbes magazine's Top 30 Under 30 Social
Entrepreneurs, has raised more than $550,000 in
funding, including a grant from the National
Geographic Society's Great Energy Challenge.

14. "I like being a Saral Jeevan Sakhi because I get to save my village from kerosene
fires and fear of darkness. I am learning about solar and its benefits, I am making
money, and now, I am respected by my family members."
Meena Kumari, Chomu Block, Saral Jeevan Sakhi

15. Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Energy access provides opportunities for women
entrepreneurs to make an income and enhance their
social status by creating and disseminating sustainable
energy solutions.
Barriers, such as lack of training and education, and social
norms that view modern energy technology businesses as
“men’s work”, limit women’s opportunities to engage in
sustainable energy entrepreneurship.
Tasks ahead include enhancing women’s leadership and
participation in the energy sector, developing targeted
training programmes for women
(UN 2016)

17. Empowering the next generation
• Girls are left behind without educational
opportunities due to the lack of reliable light.
• A number of quantitative and qualitative studies
have shown that clean energy access is linked
with better chances for girls to complete primary
education and for women to earn better wages
• it also contributes to a reduction in gender-based
violence, and an ability to power mobile phones
means better connectivity and better business
opportunities.

20. Energy, Entrepreneurship and
Disruptive Technology
• The importance of advancing the
opportunities for girls-health, education-and
learning their aspirations
• The improvement of their lives-using
disruptive technologies-renewable energy and
mobile phones
• Changing their perceptions of themselves-and
empowering them-making SMART villages