Rural electrification

Rural electrification is the process of bringing electrical power to rural and remote areas. Electricity is used not only for lighting and household purposes, but it also allows for mechanization of many farming operations, such as threshing, milking, and hoisting grain for storage. In areas facing labor shortages, this allows for greater productivity at reduced cost. One famous program was the New Deal's Rural Electrification Administration in the United States, which pioneered many of the schemes still practiced in other countries.

At least a billion people worldwide still lack household electric power - a population equal to that of the entire world in the early 19th century.

As of the mid 2010s an estimated 200 to 300 million people in India (15 to 20 percent of the total population) lack electricity as well as seven out of eight rural Sub-Saharan Africans. Many more receive only intermittent and poor quality electric power. In 2012 Some 23% of people in East Java, Indonesia, a core region, also lack electricity, as surveyed in 2013.

It is estimated that the absolute number of people without power was growing until the late 1980s when rural electrification programs, particularly in East Asia, outpaced the growth of human populations. Up from about 1.84 billion in 1970, approximately 2.01 billion (equal to the world population in 1927) people in developing countries still lacked household electric power in 1990 (the year the World Wide Web was invented) - about 38 percent of the world's population at that time, 51 percent of the population of so-called developing countries, and 67 percent of rural parts of the developing world.

The IEA estimates that, if current trends do not change, the number of people without electricity will rise to 1.2 billion by the year 2030. Due to high population growth, the number of people without electricity is expected to rise in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Due to their geographical location and low demand compared to the area, rural areas are mainly suitable for renewable energy off grid applications. Renewable energies based mini grids are less dependent on larger-scale infrastructure and could be placed in service faster. Where an electric power distribution grid can be set up single wire earth return is often used. The following technologies are used extensively:

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