The DC House project: An alternate solution for rural electrification

The DC House project started in 2010 which aims to provide an alternative solution to rural electrification, especially for geographically hard-to-reach areas. The DC House offers an individual or family-based as opposed to the community-based rural electrification. This makes the DC House solution scalable, affordable, and flexible. It does this by operating its components and system based on low-power, low-voltage DC electrical system to directly run DC loads; thus, bypassing losses associated with the traditional AC voltage system. The DC House also uses human-powered energy sources, making it even more sustainable in producing electricity. The development of the DC House system along with its components will be presented. Recent status of the DC House including the various projects undertaken to construct it and plans for its field testing will also be summarized.