Barriers and Enablers of Sustainable Energy Initiatives like Diffusion of Solar Cooking in Rural India: A Case Study from Madhya Pradesh

In rural areas of India use of traditional cooking fuel, namely wood, biomass, and charcoal are predominant, which needs to be reduced to achieve sustainable rural development. There have been multiple plans and initiatives by the Indian government that aimed to reduce dependency on traditional cooking fuels and promote the use of clean cooking fuel and equal access to all. Some of these initiatives have resulted in widespread use of clean cooking fuels only in a few states, despite equal presence in all states of India. The active schemes for providing clean cooking fuel and sustainable energy use, such as renewable sources does not include actions to enhance community participation and engagement at the village level. The existing studies focusing on widespread use of clean cooking and use of renewable energy, such as solar for cooking fuel, have looked at the factors affecting the results of active initiatives and their macro-level impacts. This exploratory and descriptive master's thesis aimed to uncover the factors acting as enablers and barriers and influence the acceptance of clean cooking fuel and impact the diffusion of solar cooking systems at the village household level in Madhya Pradesh state of India. To achieve the objectives, this thesis used the conceptual framework built by integrating contextual and conceptual elements to evaluate the key indicators of community acceptance and adoption, including the perspective of key stakeholders and organisations involved in policy implementation, as well as connecting the village population with initiatives of the Indian government. To find the key factors affecting the uptake of solar cooking systems in villages of Madhya Pradesh, villages from southern districts with a high concentration of rural population were focused on. The used methods included a survey of 72 households and interviews of Panchayats, SHG members, NGO people working in focused villages, and the state and district level sellers of solar energy household systems. The findings revealed that the increasing cost of current cooking fuel supports adoption, but the high upfront cost of solar cooking systems, low knowledge and awareness, low trust in the administration, and lack of reachable localised departmental bodies are the hindrances in adoption at the village household level.