Solar Plus Storage Powered ATMs in India

India has hundreds of millions of people living in abject energy poverty without access to the power grid. Just as the telecom revolution in India bypassed the fixed line route and moved straight away to mobile technologies, there are expectations that a vast number of these citizens will straightaway move to distributed energy sources and bypass the mainstream power grid. Minigrids are slowly catching up in rural India where startups like Mera Gao Power are using a mix of micro loans and solar powered lights to provide electricity to villagers at a cheaper rate the fossil fuels.

Off grid solutions have the biggest bang for the buck for solar powered solutions as solar energy plus storage is cheaper than diesel or kerosene powered generators or appliances. With the solar prices dropping like a stone and energy storage prices also coming down rapidly, it is becoming possible to deploy these solutions for a variety of different areas.

Energy storage giant Panasonic which is present in both solar energy manufacturing as well as lithium battery production is at the forefront in this new and fast growing market. The company has provided more than 640 energy plus storage solutions to ATMs in far off rural areas which do not have access to the grid. Panasonic is the technology provider as well as the partner of Tesla’s massive Gigafactory in Arizona which recently started production of lithium batteries for Tesla’s Electric Vehicles as well as its Powerwall rooftop solar storage solution.

Besides, solar powered ATMs, diesel powered telecom towers are also a great market for solar plus storage off grid products. India wants to eliminate usage of diesel for powering telecom towers, thousands of which dot the countryside. Many of these have no connection with the power grid and burning of expensive diesel causing pollution is the only option for these telecom towers. If Panasonic and other companies can bring cheap enough solutions, these telecom towers will switch quickly, as fuel costs are a very high component of their running costs.