The Indo-US cooperative photovoltaic project

A cooperative program was established in 1993 by the governments of India and the United States. The 50-50 cost share project funded $500,000 of PV power systems for home lighting, water pumping, battery charging and vaccine refrigeration systems in the Sundarbans region of West Bengal, India. The project was designed as a sustainable rural economic development initiative with the Ramakrishna Mission, a well-respected humanitarian nongovernment organization (NGO) in this remote area of India. Special attention was paid to building an infrastructure for financing, installing and maintaining the PV power systems. A before-and-after impact study on the beneficiaries is being done. Lessons learned to date are presented along with details of the installed systems.