Electrifying Rural Guatemala: Central Policy and Rural Reality

10.1068/c14r ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J Taylor

Towards the end of the 20th century Guatemala embarked on an ambitious rural electrification plan: central planners in the Ministry of Energy and Mines hope to connect 90% of homes to the national electricity grid by 2004. Energy for the increased demand comes from floating power plants anchored in Guatemala's Pacific port, a new coal-fired power plant, and numerous small-scale hydroelectric plants. So far, rural electrification, in terms of connected households, has proceeded to plan. However, the success of the rural electrification program belies energy realities and the development needs of rural Guatemala. Data from in-depth interviews and household surveys in Ixcán, Guatemala, show that rural residents prefer other forms of development—like the introduction of potable water, or improved schooling. Electricity, farmers state, only provides rural families with a few hours of light at night because they cannot afford to pay for appliances or for increased consumption of electricity. Fieldwork in rural areas also reveals that the introduction of electricity will not change patterns of firewood consumption; firewood is the basic survival fuel for most rural Guatemalans. Development funds may be better spent on locally run and organized forestry initiatives to ensure reliable sources of firewood for the future.

Populasi ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prijono Tjiptoherijanto

Various policies have been implemented by Indonesian government in its efforts to eliminate poverty. This paper proposes BKKBN's (National Family Planning Coordinating Agency) attempts which stress on poverty elimination in non-backward area by way of prosperous family development through expanding rural economic network. The program is started with improving movement of "pride of village" through programs of Plaju (that of Harvesting, Processingand Selling), Pemaju (that of Packaging and Selling), and Penguja (that of Services entrepreneurs) followed by Takesra ( that of Savings for People's Prosperity) and Kukesra (that of Entrepreneurial Credit for Prosperous Family). Through the programs, rural families are expected to play roles in agribusiness and agrobusiness sectors, as well as in small-scale industry. With the benefit gotfrom the programs, it is then expexted that levels of families' income increase consequently, and number of poor families in rural areas can be eliminated.


Author(s):  
Swati Pandey ◽  
Manish Chauhan

In this paper we present a road-map for rural electrification in developing countries by means of Renewable Energy based MiViPPs (Microutility virtual power plants). First and foremost a feasibility and viability analysis of the various upcoming and alternative renewable energy options is performed with respect to rural environmental constraints and demands. Renewable Energy based DDG’s (Decentralized Distributed Generation Units) offer the potential for affordable, clean electricity with minimal losses and effective maintenance and local cost recovery. But Independent DDG projects are fraught with their own issues mainly stemming from the unreliable and intermittent nature of the generated power and high costs. We propose an alternative approach to rural electrification which involves off grid DDG units operated at the local level taking advantage of feasible renewable energy technologies, which can effectively serve rural areas and reduce the urgency of costly grid extension. In MIVIPP model, a multitude of decentralized units (renewable energy based units and a non-renewable energy based unit for last mile backup) are centrally controlled and managed as part of an interconnected network, resulting into a virtual power plant that can be operated as a distributed power plant large enough to reliably serve all the local electricity demands in a cost effective manner. Finally, by a set of simulation results we establish how an automated MIVIPP (based on an Intelligent Auto Control System) effectively addresses all the issues pertaining to Dispersed DDG units by leveraging the scalability achieved by mutually augmenting the supplies from different Renewable Energy Based DDG units.


Dela ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 87-106
Author(s):  
Temur Gugushvili ◽  
Dirk Roep ◽  
Nino Durglishvili

The shift in policy focus from agriculture to rural development enables rural families to diversify their economic activities. Household-based resources, particularly human capital, are essential for capitalizing on newly developed opportunities. Locals with sufficient resources seize possibilities in agriculture and emerging economic sectors such as tourism. A case study (33 in-depth interviews) of Caucasus mountain households in Kazbegi and Mestia municipalities revealed the importance of human capital in attaining other types of resources, such as social and financial capital, and, ultimately, in the process of family-based economic development. Local families are encouraged to engage in and embrace contemporary farming practices in order to determine the most effective sustainable livelihoods. Along with long-established industries, households employ traditional knowledge to enter entrepreneurial tourism activities.


2020 ◽  
Vol XXIII (1) ◽  
pp. 22-28
Author(s):  
Deniz Ünsalan

The long existent worldwide trend for large scale hydroelectric power plants, relying on dams are now under severe criticism for the large areas their reservoirs occupy, which are often fertile agricultural areas and sometimes flood cultural heritage sites. However, there are also environment-friendly alternatives for hydroelectric power production, which are capable to obtain energy from small scale streams with relatively low heads. Such smaller scale sources with low cost facilities can be used for electric production by alternative schemes that use small streams, irrigation canals and divertions from rivers, tidal pools, overtopping wave energy converters and urban wastewater. One of the recent types of such plants are the gravity vortex turbines that use the naturally occurring “sink vortex” draining such water. They are highly efficient and able to obtain energy from sources with flow rates as low as 1 m3/s and heads as low as 0.80 m. Such water sources are abundant in most of the rural areas and it is possible to obtain either an important part or the total need of the energy requirement of the nearby communities with such systems. Gravity vortex turbines have low costs due to their simple structure and are easy to maintain. They can also be implemented for overtopping wave energy and tidal energy systems, as well as recovery units of pumped energy storage schemes. The purpose of this paper is to propose relations for the design and parametric analysis to size the relevant parts of the plant- the pool and the turbine. Potential flow is assumed throughout the analysis. Attempts to obtain optimized relations between the relative sizes and rotational speeds for the pool, water source, turbine are made and inputs for preliminary design are obtained.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heksi Lestari ◽  
Maarten Arentsen ◽  
Hans Bressers ◽  
Budhi Gunawan ◽  
Johan Iskandar ◽  
...  

This paper analyses the implementation of renewable off-grid technologies in rural areas, especially where an extension to the national electricity grid was not considered economically feasible. Implementation of remote, stand-alone, electricity technologies as alternatives to a grid connection to provide sustainable electricity access have often failed with many planned projects not realised or abandoned. Our initial assumption was that stand-alone electricity project exhibiting higher scores on sustainability indicators would benefit communities more and make their endurance more likely. However, the impact of the stand-alone technology was often overruled or its quality weakened by government preferences wishing to realise a connection to the central electricity grid. Empirically, the study compares three cases of stand-alone micro-hydropower projects and three cases of stand-alone solar photovoltaic projects in Bogor Regency, Indonesia. It is based on qualitative document analysis, complemented by multiple rounds of semi-structured interviews and observations. The paper assesses the extent to which each project met indicators of technical, economic, social, environmental, and institutional sustainability. The paper tries to explain the endurance of the project from these sustainability scores and uses additional explanations from Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. The findings show that, for the studied local communities, the attractiveness of a grid connection overrules the virtues of a stand-alone electricity project, despite its quality, successful operation and impact. Our research also shows that government policy priorities changed in the rural electrification programme for some communities. In these situations, the off-grid rural electrification programme predominantly provided only temporary access to sustainable electricity for remote local communities that remained waiting and hoping for a grid connection to connect them to fossil fuel-dominated electricity.


Author(s):  
Vesna Parausic ◽  
Svetlana Roljević Nikolić

Serbia is a member of the Energy Community and for integrating its energy sector into the EU energy system the national strategic documents define a more efficient use of energy and an increased share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption. Serbia has a significant agricultural biomass potential. However, agricultural biomass is still insufficiently or even inefficiently exploited for energy purposes. The authors of this chapter analyse the possibilities of a more efficient use of agricultural biomass for the production of biogas and electricity in Serbia, map small scale and medium biogas power plants on the domestic market, assess their economic sustainability and cost-effectiveness, and provide recommendations to farmers and potential investors which are interested in investing in this area, in the aim of generating new employment in rural areas in Serbia.


2014 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 1536-1545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Aichmayer ◽  
James Spelling ◽  
Björn Laumert

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa C. Opryszko ◽  
Haiou Huang ◽  
Kurt Soderlund ◽  
Kellogg J. Schwab

Small water enterprises (SWEs) are water delivery operations that predominantly provide water at the community level. SWEs operate beyond the reach of piped water systems, selling water to households throughout the world. Their ubiquity in the developing world and access to vulnerable populations suggests that these small-scale water vendors may prove valuable in improving potable water availability. This paper assesses the current literature on SWEs to evaluate previous studies and determine gaps in the evidence base. Piped systems and point-of-use products were not included in this assessment. Results indicate that SWEs are active in urban, peri-urban and rural areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Benefits of SWEs include: no upfront connection fees; demand-driven and flexible to local conditions; and service to large populations without high costs of utility infrastructure. Disadvantages of SWEs include: higher charges for water per unit of volume compared with infrastructure-based utilities; lack of regulation; operation often outside legal structures; no water quality monitoring; increased potential for conflict with local utilities; and potential for extortion by local officials. No rigorous, evidence-based, peer-reviewed scientific studies that control for confounders examining the effectiveness of SWEs in providing potable water were identified.


Author(s):  
Yu. Kozlov ◽  
R. Serebryakov

A new coronavirus pandemic is raging all over the world, especially in densely populated areas. Unlike most countries, more than half of the territory of Russia is not used by humans — which means that it is possible to settle large cities to avoid crowding people on a small area. The authors of the article consider wind power, namely vortex wind power plants, as a new source of energy that can be quickly and with less harm built in rural areas. The article also discusses the possibilities of an alternative Autonomous non-volatile installation "Air spring" for obtaining fresh water from atmospheric air.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7279
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Skibko ◽  
Magdalena Tymińska ◽  
Wacław Romaniuk ◽  
Andrzej Borusiewicz

Wind power plants are an increasingly common source of electricity located in rural areas. As a result of the high variability of wind power, and thus the generated power, these sources should be classified as unstable sources. In this paper, the authors attempted to determine the impact of wind turbine operation on the parameters of electricity supplied to farms located near the source. As a result of the conducted field tests, variability courses of the basic parameters describing the supply voltage were obtained. The influence of power plant variability on the values of voltage, frequency, and voltage distortion factor was determined. To estimate the capacity of the transmission lines, the reactive power produced in the power plant and its effect on the value of the power factor were determined. The conducted research and analysis showed that the wind power plant significantly influences voltage fluctuations in its immediate vicinity (the maximum value registered was close to 2%, while the value required by law was 2.5%). Although all the recorded values are within limits specified by the current regulations (e.g., the THD value is four times lower than the required value), wind turbines may cause incorrect operation of loads connected nearby. This applies mainly to cases where consumers sensitive to voltage fluctuations are installed in the direct vicinity of the power plant.


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