Microgrids project, Part 2: Design of an electrification kit with high content of renewable energy sources in Senegal

Senegal is one of the less developed countries in the world (position 158 in a list of 174 countries). 85% of its rural population does not have access to electricity and there's no doubt that this is an important barrier for socio-economic development. In this context, the project Microgrids aims at contributing to solve this problem. This project is part of the Intelligent Energy - Europe Programme supported by the European Commission. Its objective is the promotion and dissemination of the use of micro-grids with high content of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) for the electrification of villages far away from the grid in Senegal. One of the results of the project was the analysis of rural electrification needs, which is described in another paper [Camblong H, Sarr J, Niang AT, Curea O, Alzola JA, Sylla EH, Santos M. Microgrids project, part 1: analysis of rural electrification with high content of renewable energy sources in Senegal. Renewable Energy, submitted for publication.]. This paper presents the design of an electrification kit based on the information provided by that analysis [Analyse des besoins locaux pour l'électrification de zones rurales au Sénégal. Technical report of Microgrids project; 2007. Available from: http://www.microgrids-eie.com.]. After identifying necessary previous conditions for the sustainability of any electrification project, a methodology is proposed for the design of the electrification kit. This methodology is applied to a typical village and results are extended to differently sized villages in the areas of Thies, Fatick and Kaolack. Economic considerations are also included to establish the relationship between electrification costs and paying capability of the communities. Now the Microgrids' consortium hopes to set-up a new project to apply the designed kit on some rural non-electrified villages. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.