Tara Urja

We are a non-profit organization in India seeking to promote economic development and well-being of village communities by providing access to clean, reliable electricity. We build solar mini-grids to supply electricity while deploying innovative technologies to make it easier to track consumption, interface with customers and monitor our plants’ technical performance. Tara Urja was conceived in 2014, in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation's SPEED (Smart Power of Environmentally and Economically Sound Development) program to help meet rural India’s need for reliable electricity. Service is key, we believe. The infrastructure to provide electricity to the vast rural landscape has been set up in recent years, but reliability and service is still out of reach. That’s where we are doing things differently. By treating electricity as a service instead of a product, we are getting our customers to see us as partners in their progress. Since 2014, we have built 22 solar mini-grid plants across the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, serving 1,750 customers and improving the lives of over 5,000 people. The efforts have had a significant impact: average per capita income has improved by USD $18.5, 14 electric water treatment plants now give 2,800 residents clean drinking water, and carbon emissions from diesel generators have been reduced by almost 1000 tons per year. And this is just the beginning.