Browsing by Subject "Electricity access"
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Item Open Access Integrating Medium-Voltage Lines into the OnSSET Model for Electrification Planning(2019-04-25) Cathcart, WendellExtending electricity access to the 1 billion people worldwide who live without is a complex and costly undertaking, requiring data-driven methods to inform decision makers. Models for electricity access optimization fill this role by leveraging geospatial data to determine the least cost grid and off-grid electrification options for a region of study. The emergence of modern machine learning techniques coupled with abundant satellite imagery promises to provide a new source of transmission and distribution infrastructure data for electricity access modeling, yet questions persist about how to best integrate this new data into existing models. My work focused on the popular OnSSET model for electrification planning, and I explored updating the model to accommodate new data on the location of Medium-Voltage (MV) transmission infrastructure. In addition to adjusting the core model to incorporate this new class of input data, I built an add-on to optimize grid-extension from MV interconnections. Applying this updated model to a case study in Afghanistan, I found small parameter changes can have large impacts on the electricity planning pathways for a region. Similarly, the inclusion of MV infrastructure has great implications for the feasibility of grid extension.Item Open Access The Anchor-Business-Community Model for Rural Energy Development: Is it a Viable Option?(2016-04-29) Givens, RebekahThe Anchor Business Community (ABC) Model is a proposed method of rural energy development in which energy companies leverage anchor customers to reduce the risk of business in areas of uncertain demand, thereby incentivizing electrification of all customer types in a community. However, practitioners observe a lower implementation rate than expected of the model. This study examines possible barriers by using HOMER, an economic analysis modeling tool, to compare the levelized costs of rural electricity among eight scenarios. In most cases, the ABC model produces electricity at a lower cost than electrification absent the model, but cost distribution burdens individual customer groups and creates an economic disincentive to engage. Therefore, the ABC model requires public intervention (cross-subsidization, spatial analysis and planning, and forums for customer engagement) to be a viable option.Item Open Access Understanding Patterns and Impacts of Electricity Quality and Access in Northern India(2019-04-26) Keppler, Michael; Lutken, Thomas; Wang, SuminIndians have suffered from rolling outages and blackouts even as millions of citizens have gained access to electricity in recent years, which has led to concerns about electricity quality and its impacts. We conducted an in-person survey of 500 rural households in 40 communities in northern India. We used the World Bank Multi-Tier Framework and Principal Components Analysis to generate indexes of electricity quality, and ran multiple linear regressions to examine the correlations of these measures with socioeconomic indicators. We find that electricity quality varies strongly across zones served by different distribution companies, but is less closely related to the national electrification program Saubhagya. Electricity quality is also positively correlated with legal and older connections that tend to have more safety features, but unexpectedly, not positively correlated with household wealth. We find that access to electricity is strongly correlated with better standard of living, as measured by household consumption, and that better electricity quality is strongly correlated with decreased household fuel consumption.