Energy Efficiency and Renewables - New Solutions for Rural Areas in Developing Countries

Abstract

Even if people living in rural areas of developing countries is still not connected to the public grid, the need of electric energy in any village has been become quite indispensable, and, around the villages, we see many "charging stations"; equipped with small generators, where people could charge mobile phone, laptop computer and so on. This could only mitigate the lack of electrical energy in rural areas and supply energy for small emergency needs. The global amount of electric energy needed by every family is not very high, if all electrical devices are chosen between modern energy saving devices, so, to provide energy generation for rural areas, we studied and developed a series of photovoltaic kits, all equipped with batteries to store energy and diesel generator for emergencies, to be installed in small villages to supply families with electric energy for their basic needs. These kits have power of 15, 30 and 45 (up to 60 kW) and we forecast they could be suitable respectively for about 30, 60 and 90 families, based on a consumption evaluation of about 2÷2,5 kWh/day for every family. Supplying electric energy to every family could be performed through overhead lines, everyone connected to the generation plant through an electronic meter, installed into the fenced area of the plant, to protect it from fraudulent activities. To assure payment of electricity bill the electronic meter should be managed as a "virtual account", with charges of "electricity bonus" directly by mobile phone or by prepaid scratch cards. Also humanitarian associations, as well single donor, could easily perform their goals directly charging the people account, even from remote, even with a small amount of money, however allowing local people to access the electrical energy for a period. These kits are also already preset to be connected in the future to the public grid, to work with, to assure green energy production to the country.