Enhancing climate resilience of vulnerable women in the Global South through power sharing in DC microgrids

Many women of remote communities in the Global South (GS) are highly vulnerable to natural disasters caused by climate change, due to their low adaptive capability. Inclusion of gender considerations has been emphasized in national adaptation plans and initiatives aimed at reducing vulnerability. However, the potential of low-cost electricity-based solutions in promoting climate change adaptation is largely unexplored. In countries of the GS, remote communities have adopted stand-alone solar home systems, which are often inefficient and require significant investments for upgrading. In this work, a model of an off-grid DC microgrid with distributed generation and storage is proposed, allowing individual households to obtain extra energy through neighborhood-level prosumer power sharing. The benefits of power sharing are evaluated through the development of a mixed-integer linear program using load requirements based on the World Bank's Multi-Tier Framework for household energy access. The results show that households with prosumer power sharing can access more than 60 % extra energy compared to their stand-alone status with up to 34 % reduction in Levelized Cost of Energy. Access to additional energy can allow vulnerable households to access energy services in the household to potentially improve climate change adaptation opportunities in agriculture, livelihood and educational sectors, among others.