Thursday, March 06, 2014: For efficient implementation and use of clean energy resources, the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) marked a grant of $200,000 to the Solar Electric Light Company (SELCO) Foundation. The financial assistance is to help open six ‘innovation labs’.
SELCO will utilise this grant to establish innovation labs, which will implement research work. The research will be to develop and test sustainable energy solutions, and provide free training to officials from micro and medium scale enterprises on developing and servicing solar equipment like lamps, inverters, water heaters and more
Further, USAID is also supporting an amount of $2.5 million (on loan guarantee) to Orb Energy. The clean energy service provider plans to provide to 500 branches of under-served communities by the year of 2016. The plan cover states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra.
According to Hindu Business Line, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Nisha Biswal, said that “assistance to these sustainable and renewable energy projects (SELCO and Orb Energy) will help millions of Indian families,” on her first trip to India.
Both the organisations are Bangalore based.
