Energy Scenario in Uttarakhand State :

Electricity In comparison to urban areas, rural areas have less access to electricity in Uttarakhand . 17% of the rural households in Uttarakhand lack access to electricity. In rural areas of Uttarkashi, Almora, Champawat and Hardwar, more than 20% of households lack access to electricity .

 As per the latest data, there are 107 un-electrified villages in Uttarakhand. As per Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited, the un-electrified villages are surrounded by dense forests, steep hills or are snowbound. Forests, steep hills and snowbound areas make grid electrification difficult and unviable .

 In addition to poor access to electricity in rural Uttarakhand, the state is also facing acute power shortage. During last year, monthly averaged daily energy (electricity) shortages in the state ranged from 8% - 46% with an annual mean of 30% . The state is addressing the energy shortage by purchasing energy through power trading (bilateral agreements and power exchange) and rostering .Thus, it can be inferred that the state does not have the power generation capacity to support further expansion of access to electricity.

Energy for Cooking and Lighting :

As per Census of India 2011, more than 90% of the households in Uttarakhand utilize fire wood and LPG as major fuel for cooking . Almost half (48.68%) of the households in the state are using biomass as a fuel for cooking. In rural households of the state, the share of biomass in cooking further increases to 63.29%. This may be attributed to easy availability of biomass or agricultural residues at zero private cost from nearby forests or agricultural farms to rural households in Uttarakhand. Apart from biomass, LPG is also used widely for cooking in the state with 44.23% households dependent on LPG. The  percentage of LPG using households in urban areas is 79.42% and for rural areas it is 29.40%.

Among various renewable energy technologies, only biogas is being used for cooking by a very small fraction (0.47%) of households in the state. It is only in the rural areas of Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar where biogas is utilized in more than 1% households. The best case of use of biogas is of rural Nainital where 4.27% of the households depend on biogas for cooking .

For lighting, electricity is the main energy source being utilized in Uttarakhand households followed by kerosene with shares of 87.04% and 11.08% households respectively .The share of kerosene usage is higher in rural households with 14.53% rural households using it for lighting. Among renewable energy technologies for lighting, only solar energy usage is being reported. 1.22% households of Uttarakhand are reported to be using solar lighting devices. In rural and urban areas of Uttarakhand, solar lighting is being used by 1.69% and 0.08% households respectively. In rural areas of Chamoli and Champawat, solar energy utilization for lighting score high with more than 5% of the households utilizing solar lighting.

 In rural areas Percentage of households using various types of fuels for lighting of the state, majority of expenditure on fuel and light is on firewood and chips followed by electricity.

However, in urban areas, expenditure on LPG and electricity has the majority share in the amount spent on fuel and light. This indicates large scale biomass usage for cooking in rural areas of Uttarakhand as pointed by Census of India 2011.