A geospatial framework for electrification planning in developing countries

In efforts to achieve universal electricity access, geospatial factors, particularly the distribution of populated places and other electricity demands, are fundamentally important in determining the relative costs of competing grid, mini-grid or home system electrification options. Research presented here goes beyond broad metrics such as population density to instead consider patterns of aggregation and distances between communities to produce geographically specific cost estimates for medium and low voltage line. This analysis considers these factors at two geographic scales. First, it presents localized investigations of several rural locations in sub-Saharan Africa, at the scale of tens of kilometers, using household-level location data from GPS surveying and high-resolution satellite imagery. This work resulted in broad classification of village landscapes and suggested cost-effective electrification with different technologies depending upon inter-community and inter-household distances as proxies for medium and low voltage line lengths. Second, the analysis draws upon larger scale planning studies and data, at the scale of thousands of kilometers, in developing countries targeting electricity access for millions or tens of millions of unserved households, relying on coarser geospatial population datasets. A key observation of this analysis relates to the manner in which electrification planning can respond to cost tradeoffs between grid and non-grid electrification options in areas with different settlement patterns.