Manoj Sinha and Charles Ransler, students at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, recently developed a business that uses rice husks that are a waste product of rice milling to provide electricity for rural villagers in India.

Husk Power Systems (HPS) has set up its service in two villages in Bihar, India and will expand to 20 villages in 2008, 100 villages in 2009, and 2,500 villages by the year 2013. The power supply and distribution system uses 35-100kW mini power-plants in villages of 200 to 500 households, and offers electricity as a pay-for-use service.

There are 480 million Indians with no access to electricity. “Our relatives still do not have electricity. We wanted to give back to those areas”, says Manoj Sinha of HPS.

Gyanesh Pandey left an engineering career in California to manage the HPS projects in India.

The technology gasifies rice husks to produce electricity, waste ash that can be used in the manufacture of cement, and a reduction in carbon emissions.

The rice husk generators should break even in about 2.5 years, and would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 200 tons per year per village.

Husk Power Systems won the 2008 Social Innovation Award from the University of Texas RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service.