Of the world's 1.3 billion people who live without access to power, a
quarter - about 300 million - live in rural India in states such as
Bihar. Nighttime satellite images of the sprawling subcontinent show the
story: Vast swaths of the country still lie in darkness.
Energy access is worse in rural areas. Bihar, one of India's poorest states, has a population of 103 million, nearly a third the size of the United States. Fewer have electricity as the primary source of lighting there than in any other place in India, just over 16 percent, according to 2011 census data. Families still light their homes with kerosene lamps and cook on clay stoves with cow-dung patties or kindling
In Bihar, the average per-capita electricity consumption is 203 kilowatt hours per person per year, compared with about 1,000 kilowatt hours for India as a whole, about 4,000 for China and about 12,000 for the United States, according to estimates from the World Bank and India's Central Electricity Authority.
Although 300 million Indians have no access to power, millions more in the country of 1.2 billion people live with spotty supplies of electricity from the country's unreliable power grid. The grid failed spectacularly in 2012, plunging more than 600 million people into total blackout.
The Indian government has launched an ambitious project to supply 24-hour power to its towns and villages by 2022 - with plans for miles of new feeder lines, infrastructure upgrades and solar microgrids for the remotest areas
Most of the country's power-generating capacity still comes from about 125 coal-fired power plants, but the government has mandated that plants constructed after 2017 be built with more efficient "super critical" technology. As many as 140 coal-fired plants are planned or in the pipeline, according to Arunabha Ghosh, the chief executive of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in New Delhi.
India, the third-largest emitter of greenhouses gases after China and the United States, has taken steps to address climate change in advance of the global talks in Paris this year - pledging a steep increase in renewable energy by 2030.
Total carbon dioxide emissions for India were 1.7 tons per capita in 2012, the most recent complete data available, compared with 6.9 tons for China and 16.3 tons for the United States, according to the World Resources Institute. Officials say they are keenly aware of India's vulnerability to the impacts of climate change: rising sea levels, drought, flooding and food security.
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked climate change with President Obama in September at the United Nations, he was careful to note that he and Obama share "an uncompromising commitment on climate change without affecting our ability to meet the development aspirations of humanity."
Fossil fuel generation of electricity is the largest single source of greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide. Yet demand for inexpensive power will rise in a great tide in the decades to come, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the two regions of the globe with the least access to electricity. All the countries of Africa, taken together, have twice as many people without electricity as India does - 622 million. No country is content with that.
Energy access is worse in rural areas. Bihar, one of India's poorest states, has a population of 103 million, nearly a third the size of the United States. Fewer have electricity as the primary source of lighting there than in any other place in India, just over 16 percent, according to 2011 census data. Families still light their homes with kerosene lamps and cook on clay stoves with cow-dung patties or kindling
In Bihar, the average per-capita electricity consumption is 203 kilowatt hours per person per year, compared with about 1,000 kilowatt hours for India as a whole, about 4,000 for China and about 12,000 for the United States, according to estimates from the World Bank and India's Central Electricity Authority.
Although 300 million Indians have no access to power, millions more in the country of 1.2 billion people live with spotty supplies of electricity from the country's unreliable power grid. The grid failed spectacularly in 2012, plunging more than 600 million people into total blackout.
The Indian government has launched an ambitious project to supply 24-hour power to its towns and villages by 2022 - with plans for miles of new feeder lines, infrastructure upgrades and solar microgrids for the remotest areas
Most of the country's power-generating capacity still comes from about 125 coal-fired power plants, but the government has mandated that plants constructed after 2017 be built with more efficient "super critical" technology. As many as 140 coal-fired plants are planned or in the pipeline, according to Arunabha Ghosh, the chief executive of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in New Delhi.
India, the third-largest emitter of greenhouses gases after China and the United States, has taken steps to address climate change in advance of the global talks in Paris this year - pledging a steep increase in renewable energy by 2030.
Total carbon dioxide emissions for India were 1.7 tons per capita in 2012, the most recent complete data available, compared with 6.9 tons for China and 16.3 tons for the United States, according to the World Resources Institute. Officials say they are keenly aware of India's vulnerability to the impacts of climate change: rising sea levels, drought, flooding and food security.
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked climate change with President Obama in September at the United Nations, he was careful to note that he and Obama share "an uncompromising commitment on climate change without affecting our ability to meet the development aspirations of humanity."
Fossil fuel generation of electricity is the largest single source of greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide. Yet demand for inexpensive power will rise in a great tide in the decades to come, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the two regions of the globe with the least access to electricity. All the countries of Africa, taken together, have twice as many people without electricity as India does - 622 million. No country is content with that.
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