Informal Markets for Electricity: Economics of Lighting for Hawkers in India

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the economics of supplying energy needs for illumination requirements by hawkers using alternatives like compact fluorescent lamps battery lamps, liquefied petroleum gas mantle lamps or supply from mini‐grids supported by local diesel generators. Further, the prevailing business models like the lamp rental and the mini‐grid models, which epitomise informal electricity markets, are also analysed.Design/methodology/approach – Three localities in Kanpur city are identified and data on techno‐economic characteristics of illumination options used by hawkers are collected. To compare the available options with varying capital life‐span, equivalent annual cost approach is utilized. This is used to calculate the levelised cost of 1 kiloWalthour energy used for providing illumination.Findings – The daily user cost of illumination ranges from Rs 6.1 to 17 (for four hours) across the four existing models studied in the paper. This translates to Rs 31.3 to 312.5 p...