IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v78y2015icp679-684.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The ‘low power’ revolution: Rural off-grid consumer technologies and portable micropower systems in non-industrialised regions

Author

Listed:
  • McHenry, Mark P.
  • Doepel, David

Abstract

This review analyses the growth in small ‘low power’ renewable energy and consumer product technologies and their potential utility in rural and remote economic development. The historical legacy of increasingly industrial-scale and expensive centralised high voltage alternating current (AC) systems contrasts starkly against the dynamic plethora of energy efficient portable low power direct current (DC) devices and consumer goods that underpin a modern economy. Advantages of portable DC devices are their inherent utility as a deferrable load and imbedded storage, enabling the appliance to become the balance of system (BOS) component and the power management system when coupled to portable renewable energy system or a microgrid. These developments present the opportunity to revise broad assumptions of appropriate energy system investment models for non-industrialised nations without an expensive historical centralised high voltage AC industrialisation legacy. It also presents the opportunity to revisit appropriate rural clean energy stand-alone or microgrid system designs and configurations, and engage the information and communication technology (ICT) sector as a major new investor in energy services and infrastructure.

Suggested Citation

  • McHenry, Mark P. & Doepel, David, 2015. "The ‘low power’ revolution: Rural off-grid consumer technologies and portable micropower systems in non-industrialised regions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 679-684.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:78:y:2015:i:c:p:679-684
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2015.01.052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148115000701
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2015.01.052?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Page, Scott E., 2006. "Path Dependence," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 87-115, January.
    2. Jayne, T. S. & Govereh, J. & Mwanaumo, A. & Nyoro, J. K. & Chapoto, A., 2002. "False Promise or False Premise? The Experience of Food and Input Market Reform in Eastern and Southern Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 1967-1985, November.
    3. Karekezi, Stephen & Kithyoma, Waeni, 2002. "Renewable energy strategies for rural Africa: is a PV-led renewable energy strategy the right approach for providing modern energy to the rural poor of sub-Saharan Africa?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(11-12), pages 1071-1086, September.
    4. Jayne, T.S. & Mather, David & Mghenyi, Elliot, 2010. "Principal Challenges Confronting Smallholder Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1384-1398, October.
    5. McHenry, Mark P., 2013. "Technical and governance considerations for advanced metering infrastructure/smart meters: Technology, security, uncertainty, costs, benefits, and risks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 834-842.
    6. McHenry, Mark P., 2009. "Why are remote Western Australians installing renewable energy technologies in stand-alone power supply systems?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1252-1256.
    7. McHenry, Mark P., 2009. "Remote area power supply system technologies in Western Australia: New developments in 30 years of slow progress," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1348-1353.
    8. Mark McHenry, 2013. "Hybrid microalgal biofuel, desalination, and solution mining systems: increased industrial waste energy, carbon, and water use efficiencies," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 159-167, January.
    9. McHenry, M.P. & Doepel, D. & Onyango, B.O. & Opara, U.L., 2014. "Small-scale portable photovoltaic-battery-LED systems with submersible LED units to replace kerosene-based artisanal fishing lamps for Sub-Saharan African lakes," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 276-284.
    10. Adkins, Edwin & Eapen, Sandy & Kaluwile, Flora & Nair, Gautam & Modi, Vijay, 2010. "Off-grid energy services for the poor: Introducing LED lighting in the Millennium Villages Project in Malawi," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 1087-1097, February.
    11. Welsch, Manuel & Bazilian, Morgan & Howells, Mark & Divan, Deepak & Elzinga, David & Strbac, Goran & Jones, Lawrence & Keane, Andrew & Gielen, Dolf & Balijepalli, V.S.K. Murthy & Brew-Hammond, Abeeku , 2013. "Smart and Just Grids for sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring options," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 336-352.
    12. Bernard Tenenbaum & Chris Greacen & Tilak Siyambalapitiya & James Knuckles, 2014. "From the Bottom Up : How Small Power Producers and Mini-Grids Can Deliver Electrification and Renewable Energy in Africa [Quand la lumière vient d'en bas : Comment les petits producteurs d'électric," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 16571.
    13. World Bank, 2013. "World Development Indicators 2013," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13191.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McHenry, M.P. & Doepel, D. & Onyango, B.O. & Opara, U.L., 2014. "Small-scale portable photovoltaic-battery-LED systems with submersible LED units to replace kerosene-based artisanal fishing lamps for Sub-Saharan African lakes," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 276-284.
    2. Mandelli, Stefano & Barbieri, Jacopo & Mereu, Riccardo & Colombo, Emanuela, 2016. "Off-grid systems for rural electrification in developing countries: Definitions, classification and a comprehensive literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1621-1646.
    3. Holstenkamp, Lars, 2019. "What do we know about cooperative sustainable electrification in the global South? A synthesis of the literature and refined social-ecological systems framework," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 307-320.
    4. Kirchhoff, Hannes & Strunz, Kai, 2019. "Key drivers for successful development of peer-to-peer microgrids for swarm electrification," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 244(C), pages 46-62.
    5. Baurzhan, Saule & Jenkins, Glenn P., 2016. "Off-grid solar PV: Is it an affordable or appropriate solution for rural electrification in Sub-Saharan African countries?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1405-1418.
    6. Ross, S.J. & McHenry, M.P. & Whale, J., 2012. "The impact of state feed-in tariffs and federal tradable quota support policies on grid-connected small wind turbine installed capacity in Australia," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 141-147.
    7. John Foster & Liam Wagner & Liam Byrnes, 2014. "A Review of Distributed Generation for Rural and Remote Area Electrification," Energy Economics and Management Group Working Papers 3-2014, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    8. Harish, Santosh M. & Iychettira, Kaveri K. & Raghavan, Shuba V. & Kandlikar, Milind, 2013. "Adoption of solar home lighting systems in India: What might we learn from Karnataka?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 697-706.
    9. McHenry, M.P., 2012. "Technical, mitigation, and financial comparisons of 6kWe grid-connected and stand-alone wood gasifiers, versus mineral diesel and biodiesel generation for rural distributed generation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 428-437.
    10. Mugisha, Joshua & Ratemo, Mike Arasa & Bunani Keza, Bienvenu Christian & Kahveci, Hayriye, 2021. "Assessing the opportunities and challenges facing the development of off-grid solar systems in Eastern Africa: The cases of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Rwanda," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    11. McHenry, Mark P., 2012. "Are small-scale grid-connected photovoltaic systems a cost-effective policy for lowering electricity bills and reducing carbon emissions? A technical, economic, and carbon emission analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 64-72.
    12. Anubhab Gupta & Justin Kagin & J Edward Taylor & Mateusz Filipski & Lindi Hlanze & James Foster, 2018. "Is technology change good for cotton farmers? A local-economy analysis from the Tanzania Lake Zone," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 45(1), pages 27-56.
    13. Pillot, Benjamin & Muselli, Marc & Poggi, Philippe & Dias, João Batista, 2019. "Historical trends in global energy policy and renewable power system issues in Sub-Saharan Africa: The case of solar PV," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 113-124.
    14. Coelho, Vitor N. & Weiss Cohen, Miri & Coelho, Igor M. & Liu, Nian & Guimarães, Frederico Gadelha, 2017. "Multi-agent systems applied for energy systems integration: State-of-the-art applications and trends in microgrids," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 820-832.
    15. McHenry, Mark P., 2012. "A technical, economic, and greenhouse gas emission analysis of a homestead-scale grid-connected and stand-alone photovoltaic and diesel systems, against electricity network extension," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 126-135.
    16. J. Clark & Robert Lawson & Alex Nowrasteh & Benjamin Powell & Ryan Murphy, 2015. "Does immigration impact institutions?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 321-335, June.
    17. Plain, N. & Hingray, B. & Mathy, S., 2019. "Accounting for low solar resource days to size 100% solar microgrids power systems in Africa," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 448-458.
    18. Muhammad Shafiullah & Ravinthirakumaran Navaratnam, 2016. "Do Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Enjoy Export-Led Growth? A Comparison of Two Small South Asian Economies," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 17(1), pages 114-132, March.
    19. Jan Fagerberg & Martin Srholec, 2017. "Global Dynamics, Capabilities and the Crisis," Economic Complexity and Evolution, in: Andreas Pyka & Uwe Cantner (ed.), Foundations of Economic Change, pages 83-106, Springer.
    20. Maria Iacovou, 2013. "The relationship between incomes and living arrangements: variation between countries, over the life course, and over time," ImPRovE Working Papers 13/15, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:78:y:2015:i:c:p:679-684. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.