Energy Systems and Technologies for the Coming Century ...

IntroductionElectricity has become a part of the modern civilization and is the most common form ofenergy in use because of its cleanliness, simplicity and its versatility in uses. Despite ofcentury long history of the grid electrification, still large population in the developingworld are living either in dark or with alternative arrangement for lighting. In most of thedeveloping countries, electricity market is characterized by low access rate and low loadfactors (Haanyika, 2008; Mainali and Silveira, 2010). Rural areas in many developingcountries are thinly populated and geographically isolated, which means difficultaccessibility. This increases the unit cost of electricity delivery (Ashok, 2007; Banerjee,2006). Even the access areas are of poor supply quality with huge gap between supplyand demand, followed by load-shedding, frequent blackouts and high transmission losses.The rural electrification in many developing countries has been implemented on politicalinterest and without the real resource assessment (looking at the cost of electricitygeneration with different alternatives). The off-grid and on-grid options are oftenpromoted in parallel, many times responding to opportunities generated throughinternational action and donors’ programs objectives. Thus, the basis for choosingpathways in electrification is not often clear or rational.Various literatures are available on the discussion about off-grid technologies withsystem design, policies and programmes, and economic analysis (Martinot et al., 2001;Arun et al., 2007; Chaurey and Kandpal, 2010; Kumar and Banerjee, 2010; Brent andRogers, 2010). Nguyen (2007) examined the economic feasibility of two off-gridtechnologies i.e. solar PV and wind power in the context of rural Vietnam, looking attheir levelized cost of generation. Thiam. (2010) has analyzed alternative pathways (offgridtechnologies versus on-grid) in the context of Senegal by adopting similarmethodology as of Nguyen (2007) with additional consideration of environmentalexternalities. Some other literatures are also available on off-grid technologies with minigrid systems and the grid connection (Wamukonya and Davis, 2001; Oparaku, 2003;Nfah et al., 2008; Kirubi et al., 2009; Kumar et al., 2009).This paper basically follows the same methodology as followed by Nguyen (2007) andThiam. (2010) and looks at the various alternative pathways for rural electrification inAfghanistan and Nepal. The paper analyses rural electrification scenarios with (a) variousrenewable energy (RE) technologies of individual household system, (b) using mini gridswith micro hydro, and (c) also the case when the national grid connection reaches in anarea which is previously supplied with off-grid technologies. Levelized cost of electricity(LCOE) has been taken as the main basis to compare various options. Three referencetechnologies Solar PV system, Micro hydro and Wind generators are chosen for theanalysis. The study has chosen the two countries Afghanistan and Nepal, due to somesimilar characteristics such as both of these countries are landlocked, and economicallyamong the poorest countries in the world, and politically both have passed through a longhistory of conflict and insurgency. Similarly from the resource perspectives, both thecountries have similar average solar intensity in the range of 200 w/m 2 , and both havehilly terrain areas having huge potential for micro and small hydro powers for ruralelectrification. Wind potential has not been harnessed in both the cases, but could beexplored in future. In the case of Nepal, efforts have been made to collect the data onRisø International Energy Conference 2011 Proceedings Page 358