For years, farming in Rajpati Devi’s village in Jharkhand followed the rains.
When the monsoon came, the fields could be cultivated. When it ended, there was little that could be done.
Then solar panels arrived.
Photo caption: Rajpati Devi in Korabar, where solar power now brings water to her fields.
Then solar panels arrived.
The panels did not just produce electricity. They powered a system that could pump water into the fields.
That meant something more consequential than a light switching on. Rajpati and other farmers could cultivate beyond the rainy season, growing crops throughout the year.
“We women can go and switch the system on ourselves,” she said. “The water reaches our fields.” For her, electricity arrived as water.
That may be one of the less obvious ways to think about the global energy gap. Electricity is usually measured in connections, megawatts and households. But for people living without reliable power, its value is often measured in things that have little to do with electricity itself.
A pump that can bring water to a field.
A computer that can stay on in a classroom.
A clinic that does not have to depend on a backup generator.
A family that can earn enough to stay home.
Nearly 666 million people around the world still live without electricity.
And having an electricity connection does not necessarily mean having reliable electricity. In many places, the question is not whether a wire reaches a building, but whether there is enough dependable power to run the things people need.
Photo caption: Reliable power helps this Meghalaya clinic deliver essential healthcare.
That distinction becomes particularly important in rural areas, where electricity can be tied directly to livelihoods.
A farmer needs power to pump water. A small business needs it to operate equipment. A school needs it for computers and lighting. A health centre may need it to keep essential equipment running through the night.
Clean cooking is another part of the problem. About 2.1 billion people still lack access to clean cooking solutions. Traditional wood and charcoal stoves expose households to indoor air pollution and contribute to millions of deaths each year.
So providing energy is not simply a matter of adding more electricity to the world.
It is about deciding where it goes, what it powers and whether it can keep working.
Also Watch: How Reliable Electricity Is Changing Lives and Communities
In Menofia, Egypt, the connection between energy and water looks familiar.
Solar-powered irrigation and agricultural processing systems are helping nearly 46,000 people access water and support their livelihoods.
Photo caption: A solar-powered pump brings reliable irrigation to farming families in Menoufia.
The technology is different in different places. A solar home system might make sense for one household. A water-pumping system might be more useful for a farming community. A microgrid can provide power to an entire facility.
In Kenya, solar microgrids have been used at maternal health clinics in Matongo and Nyagoto, providing power around the clock.
The clinics had previously relied on backup generators.
Photo caption: Solar power keeps this maternity clinic in Kenya running around the clock.
The reported results were striking: maternal mortality fell by 83 percent and infant mortality by 70 percent.
At schools, the effects can be much more ordinary, and perhaps easier to overlook.
Elizabeth Mbati, an educator in Kenya, described being able to power school operations, including computers, lighting, security and phone charging.
Photo caption: For these Kenyan students, solar power means light, charging and access to technology.
Also watch: The power of solar where it matters most
There is another problem that becomes apparent once a solar system is installed in a remote place.
Someone has to keep it running.
A broken system can be as useless as no system at all if there is nobody nearby who knows how to repair it.
Schneider Electric’s Access to Energy programme has therefore invested not only in energy systems but also in people who can install, maintain and build businesses around them.
Photo caption: A solar-powered health centre in Meghalaya brings reliable electricity to essential care.
Since 2019, young people from underserved communities in India have been trained as clean-energy entrepreneurs. They bring solar-powered solutions to homes, schools, businesses and health centres across rural areas.
The network now includes 407 entrepreneurs.
Photo caption: Training local entrepreneurs helps communities install and maintain their own energy systems.
That creates a different kind of connection.
The person who brings electricity to a village can also become the person who maintains the system. And the skills required to do that can become a source of employment in the same community.
The effects can extend further.
In the Indian communities described by the programme, household incomes doubled while migration fell from 54 percent to 17 percent.
Also watch: The people powering solar change
The energy transition is often pictured at a much larger scale.
There are solar farms stretching across fields, wind turbines along coastlines and new power infrastructure being built to accommodate electric vehicles and growing demand.
But there is another transition happening far from those images.
It is happening in farms that need water pumps, schools that need computers and health centres that need electricity at 2 a.m.
For these communities, access to energy is less about replacing one source of electricity with another and more about gaining access to things that electricity makes possible.
Photo caption: Local skills can turn energy access into jobs within the same community.
That is why Schneider Electric’s programme has focused on more than supplying equipment.
Its Access to Energy initiatives combine energy solutions with training, local entrepreneurship and partnerships with organisations working on the ground.
The approach is also becoming more digital, with technologies that can help monitor systems remotely, anticipate maintenance needs and manage energy over its lifetime.
The aim is to make these systems useful not just when they are installed, but years afterward.
Rajpati’s story began with a solar-powered water pump. Elsewhere, the same basic idea takes different forms.
In Egypt, it means water for agriculture.
In Kenya, it means electricity for classrooms and maternal health clinics.
In India, it means farmers can cultivate beyond the monsoon and families can stay closer to home.
Since 2009, Schneider Electric Access to Energy have reached more than 64 million people around the world.
The company says it aims to reach 100 million people with clean and reliable electricity by 2030. The numbers are large.
But the reason energy access matters can sometimes be found in something much smaller: a woman turning on a pump and watching water move towards her field.
For Rajpati, that was what electricity looked like.
Water.
Also watch: The solar power behind a better harvest
In collaboration with Schneider
