Rural electrification

Rural electrification is the process of bringing electrical power to rural and remote areas. Rural communities are suffering from colossal market failures as the national grids fall short of their demand for electricity. As of 2019, 770 million people live without access to electricity – 10.2% of the global population. Electrification typically begins in cities and towns and gradually extends to rural areas, however, this process often runs into obstacles in developing nations. Expanding the national grid is expensive and countries consistently lack the capital to grow their current infrastructure. Additionally, amortizing capital costs to reduce the unit cost of each hook-up is harder to do in lightly populated areas (yielding higher per capita share of the expense). If countries are able to overcome these obstacles and reach nationwide electrification, rural communities will be able to reap considerable amounts of economic and social development. Access to electricity facilitates sustainable economic and social growth. First, through an increase in educational achievement. Students who were previously forced to study when the sun was shining are now able to study by the light of LEDs early in the morning or late into the night. In Kenya for example, interviews with school teachers revealed that access to light has allowed for extra hours of teaching earlier and later in the day to cover material not adequately reviewed during normal hours. Additionally, schools with access to electricity are able to recruit higher quality teachers and have seen improvements on test scores and graduation rates, raising the human capital entering the labor force in the future. In addition to improved education, rural electrification also allows for greater efficiency and productivity. Businesses will be able to keep their doors open for longer and generate additional revenues. Farmers will have access to streamlined modern techniques such as irrigation, crop processing, and food preservation.