Financing renewable energy for Village Power application
When one talks of rural development, no doubt, the issue of rural energy is not far behind. As a significant component of any development strategy, rural energy is seen as the engine for growth that can bring about economic upliftment in the countryside. Many approaches to rural energy development have been tried. These approaches differ from country to country. But regardless of structure and approach, the goal remain essentially the same: to provide rural communities access to reliable energy services at affordable prices. In recent years, as global concern for the environment has increased, many governments have turned to renewable energy as a more environment friendly alternative to rural electrification. Technological advances in renewable energy application has helped to encourage this use. System reliability has improved, development costs have, to some extent been brought down and varied application approaches have been tried and tested in many areas. Indeed, there is huge potential for the development of renewable energy in the rural areas of most developing countries. At the rural level, renewable energy resources are almost always abundantly available: woodwaste, agricultural residues, animal waste, small-scale hydro, wind, solar and even sometimes geothermal resources. Since smaller scale systems are usually expected in these areas, renewable energy technologies can very well serve as decentralized energy systems for rural application. And not only for rural applications, new expansion planning paradigms have likewise led to the emergence of decentralized energy systems not only as supply options but also as corrective measures for maintaining end of line voltage levels. On the other hand, where renewable energy resource can provide significant blocks of power, they can be relied upon to provide indigenous power to the grids.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 552011
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/CP-440-23409; CONF-9704141-; ON: DE97008397; TRN: 97:005443-0036
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Village power `97, Arlington, VA (United States), 14-15 Apr 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997; Related Information: Is Part Of Village Power `97. Proceedings; Cardinal, J.; Flowers, L.; Taylor, R.; Weingart, J. [eds.]; PB: 521 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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