| dc.description.abstract | In the current age, reliable and affordable energy is recognized as an essential ingredient for the
socio-economic development and economic growth of any country. To meet the basic human needs
such as cooking, lighting, and safe drinking water as well as to improve the quality of social
amenities such as education, communication, and productive activities, energy is vital [1]. Close to
1.2. billion people – almost the population of India, don’t have access to electricity, 2.8 billion have
to rely on wood or other biomass to cook and heat their homes [2]. In Uganda, electricity coverage
stands at 22% [3], with 57.0% [4] coverage of the urban area and 11.4% [5] coverage of the rural
areas. Many remote systems, such as repeater tower stations and radio telecommunication stations,
are entirely dependent on off-grid power systems. These off-grid systems can be hybridized with
other renewable energy sources to supply different communities. Hybrid mini-grid power systems
are potentially highly valuable electrification schemes for remote rural electrification in comparison
with other electrification schemes but they involve significant complexities in terms of design,
implementation, and operation and maintenance [7]. There are also high estimates of the number
of people who will be best served by this kind of model in the future. In Sub-Saharan Africa, of the
220 million people who are expected to need decentralized solutions, mini-grids are anticipated to
cover about two-thirds of the total figure, according to a scenario developed by the International
Energy Agency (IEA). They estimate that 315 million people in rural areas of this region will gain
access to electricity by 2040, with around 80 million being served by individual systems and around
140 million by mini-grids. This requires the development of between 100,000 and 200,000 minigrids, depending on the number of households connected to each system | en_US |
