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Electrificacion Rural
Electrificacion Rural
Rural
Electrification
Goes Local
Recent innovations in renewable generation,
energy efficiency, and grid modernization.
T
evolved over time because of the urban- electricity. An executive
ization movement. Today, rural areas are order was signed by
typically defined as all territories outside President Franklin Roos-
urban or suburban areas, where farming evelt in 1935 establish-
is still the main economic activity. The U.S Census ing the Rural Electrifica-
Bureau defines a rural area as any area outside of an tion Administration, and
urbanized area whose population is greater than 50,000 by 1975, more than 99%
and whose core population density is greater than 1,000 of all farms had electric-
persons per square mile (or 386 persons per square kilo- ity. The National Acade-
meter). There are many other definitions by different my of Engineering ranks
countries and even by different government agencies electrification as one of
within the same country. Regardless, the common attri- the greatest engineering
butes of rural areas are the small population clusters achievements in the
and low population density. These two characteristics 20th century.
dictate that there are tremendous challenges to build- Similarly, in other developed countries, the rural elec-
ing infrastructure in the geographically disperse rural trification rate is 99% or greater. In the developing world,
areas, which c onstrains economic activities and house- however, rural electrification has lagged by several
hold incomes. decades but has grown rapidly in recent years, particularly
in China (>99%) and India (>90%). Still, as of 2009, over a
Historical Background billion people, or 20% of the world’s population, do not
Rural electrification has come a long way since the early have access to electricity. The majority live in rural areas.
days of electric power systems. In the United States, by the
end of 1920s, electricity was generally accessible to the Rural Electrification Mission
average citizens in cities like New York, but most of the People living in rural areas use electricity beyond the basic
needs of lighting and watching TV. To improve their stan-
dard of living at home, they need electricity for heating and
cooling and for home appliances for daily chores. To
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2014.2380193
Date of publication: 27 February 2015 achieve higher productivity at work, they need electricity
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Energy Consumption Per Person (kWh/d/p)
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Figure 1. The power consumption per person versus the population density in 2005. The point size is proportional to the land area (except for
areas under 38,000 km2, which are shown by a fixed smallest point size to ensure visibility). Both axes are logarithms. (Figure courtesy of David
J.C. MacKay, www.withouthotair.com.)
Washington, D.C.) are well below the 10-W/m2 solar power distribution, and consumer. For future rural electrification,
resource line, which means that local PV generation can meet this can be replaced by a local power delivery n etwork (no
a significant portion of the total electricity demand. (Note that transmission or substation) that integrates an optimal
a simple calculation using the National Renewable Energy amount of energy storage, energy-efficient and flexible loads,
Laboratory’s PV watts shows that PV power output ranges and uses operation management tools to self-balance the
from 10 to 30 W/m2, depending on geographic location, cli- local generation and demand. Communications, SCADA, and
mate zone, module technology, and system configuration. For information technologies will be critical parts of this new
the analysis in this article, we use 10 W/m2 to simply illustrate system. The size of this model system can range from a few
its order of magnitude.) In rural areas, the energy consump- kilowatts to several megawatts in size, representing an
tion density is several times lower than the national average individual home up to a small community of several thou-
and well below 0.1 W/m2; therefore, the local supply-and- sands. This model system, essentially a microgrid, offers an
demand picture looks much more favorable. excellent solution for the future rural electrification because
Countries and regions can be grouped into four catego- it is 1) distributed and local, 2) clean and sustainable, 3) mod-
ries with distinct energy consumption profiles: rural ular and scalable, 4) reliable and resilient, and 5) cost-effec-
developed, urban developed, rural developing, and urban tive. See Figure 4 for the rural electric model system and vari-
developing (Figure 3). Clearly, both rural-developed and ous microgrid configurations.
rural-developing regions can rely on local renewable If the model system were built from scratch, it would
resources to meet the energy demand. The urban areas have been built from the bottom up, and from the edge to
will need more energy-dense local generation or will need the center, without centralized planning. It can start from a
to import from other regions. single prosumer microgrid, in which rooftop PV, for exam-
ple, will produce all of the energy needed for the household
Local Grid Infrastructure consumption. An energy storage system will be needed for
The traditional centralized ac power system is built and opti- nighttime use and for smoothing out the PV variability. A
mized for one-way power flow: generation, transmission, home energy management system will monitor and
Iowa
Texas
100
Colorado Hawaii New York
Washington, D.C.
United States New Jersey
Tri-State Los Angeles
California
New York City
United States
Rural
10
1
1 10 100 1,000 10,000
Population Density (People/km2)
Figure 2. The U.S. state- and city-level per capita electricity consumption in relation to population density and available renewable energy
resources per square kilometer.
2 BA2
100 100
1 BA1
BA0
4 BA4
10 10
3 BA3
1 1
1 10 100 1,000 1 10 100 1,000
Population Density (People/km2) Population Density (People/km2)
(a) (b)
Figure 5. (a) A large BA typically consists of smaller regions with varying energy density profiles. (b) A large BA can be broken down into smaller
BAs for better operation.