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94 05 DISTRIBUTED RENEWABLE ENERGY and fund large programmes that often cover several countries, particularly in Africa and Asia; country-level programmes, generally planned and implemented by national governments; and community-level businesses and practitioners who work with households directly and may represent the most innovative operational level of the distributed renewable energy market. The large diversity and number of actors in the field, the decentralised nature of production and consumption of energy, as well as the lack of co-ordination, make data collection and impact assessment challenging, resulting in the absence of consolidated, reliable data. However, data are available for many individual programmes and countries. This section seeks to provide a picture of the current status of distributed renewable energy markets in rural and urban areas in developing countries, and to present an overview of the major networks and programmes that were operational in 2013 in the field of distributed renewable energy. (See Reference Tables R22 and R23.) ■■ DISTRIBUTED RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES People in rural and remote regions are acquiring improved access to energy in three ways: (1) at the household level, using isolated devices and systems for power generation, heating, and cooking; (2) through community-level mini-grid systems; and (3) through grid-based electrification, where the grid is extended beyond urban areas.10 This section focuses on the first two (distributed) means of improving energy access. (See Sidebar 9.) The installation and use of distributed renewable energy technologies in remote and rural areas for electricity, cooking, heating and cooling increased during 2013. This expansion was a direct result of improved affordability, greater access to financing, greater knowledge about local resources, and more- advanced technologies that can be tailored to meet customers’ specific needs. The dramatic price reductions of the past few years have rendered solar PV more affordable, even for very small-scale applications. The popularity of solar lanterns, solar-pico PV systems (SPS) (1–10 W capacity), and slightly larger solar home systems (SHS) (10–200 W), continued to rise in 2013. SPS can be easily self-installed and are now commonly available for providing basic services such as lighting, communications, and battery or mobile phone charging. The availability of end- user appliances that can be powered by SHS continues to expand, raising interest in these systems in rural areas. One of the most successful SHS programmes has been carried out in Bangladesh, where more than 2 million systems were installed as of May 2013.11 Small-scale wind turbines (up to 50 kW) have experienced performance improvements due to the emergence of advanced materials and wireless technologies in recent years. During 2013, small-scale wind turbines were being used predominantly for battery charging, telecommunications, irrigation, and water pumping, where the variable nature of their generation can be managed easily.12 One of the most successful programmes promoting the deployment of small-scale, decentralised wind turbines is in Inner Mongolia, China. In this area around 130,000 systems, each 200– 1,000 W, were in operation as of early 2013, providing electricity to more than 500,000 people. The programme’s success has SIDEBAR 9. DISTRIBUTED RENEWABLE ENERGY: DEFINITION AND SCOPE In this edition of the GSR, the former Rural Renewable Energy section has been renamed “Distributed Renewable Energy in Developing Countries” to describe more accurately its scope of energy-related developments in developing countries that are of a distributed nature. Energy systems are considered to be distributed if (1) the systems of production are relatively small and dispersed (such as small-scale solar PV on rooftops), rather than relatively large and centralised; (2) generation and distribution occur independently from a centralised network; or (3) both. For the purpose of this section, “distributed energy” meets both conditions. It provides energy services for electrification, cooking, heating, and cooling that are generated and distributed independent of any centralised system, in urban and rural areas of the developing world. Electricity systems fall into three main categories: large centralised grid systems, mini-grids, and isolated systems. All three may have distributed components, but only the latter two are entirely distributed in nature. Most people around the world, and particularly in developed countries, are serviced by the electric grid, which is a large-scale integrated generation, transmission, and distribution network. Mini-grids vary in size and usually service a cluster of households and businesses through an independent distribution network, and most commonly in remote areas. Isolated systems are employed in individual homes or businesses, with all energy being consumed at the site of generation. Distributed electricity systems serve a variety of objectives. In developed countries, distributed generating assets are often used to reinforce power systems, thereby increasing reliability. In developing countries, where centralised grid systems fail to reach millions of people in rural and remote locations, distributed systems are crucial to providing access to electricity. Mini-grids offer a viable solution in densely populated areas where, despite the small per-household level of demand, the large number of households and businesses provide a load sufficient enough to justify the cost of mini-grid development. Isolated home electricity systems are often the most viable options for those rural households whose demand is currently limited to a few hundred watts, primarily for lighting and phone charging.