Rural electrification scheme is aimed at promoting the welfare of the rural community and improve the economic status of the people. The presence of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) is rarely felt, that the supply of power to Bayelsa from the grid is less than 10 percent. The Kolo creek gas turbine is only available to only two local communities in the state. The paper therefore is ...

Wind-blown sand, or "saltation," is an important geological process, and the primary source of atmospheric mineral dust aerosols. Significant discrepancies exist between classical saltation theory and measurements. We show here that these discrepancies can be resolved by the inclusion of sand electrification in a physically based saltation model. Indeed, we find that electric forces enhance the...

Contact electrification measurements using atomic force microscopy techniques were performed using micrometer-sized spheres made of polystyrene and flat substrates of either freshly cleaved, highly oriented pyrolytic graphite ~HOPG! or a 0.2-mm-thick Au@111# film grown on mica. The polystyrene/HOPG interaction exhibited significant electrostatic charging when compared to the polystyrene/Au syst...

The paper assesses the demand for rural electricity services and contrasts it with the technology options available for rural electrification. Decentralised Distributed Generation can be economically viable as reflected by case studies reported in literature and analysed in our field study. Project success is driven by economically viable technology choice; however it is largely contingent on o...

Developing countries have struggled with low electrification rates in the rural areas. This study investigates one major issue impeding the rural electrification programs in rural Kenya: high connection payments. The paper uses estimates obtained from a stated preference study, namely a contingent valuation method completed in 2007, to examine the willingness to pay to connect to grid-electrici...

We measured the pattern of charging by contact electrification, following contact between a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamp and a glass substrate with gold electrodes. We used scanning Kelvin probe microscopy to map the surface potential at the same regions before and after contact, allowing a point-by-point comparison. After contact, the mean surface potential of the glass shifted by 360 mV ...

We estimate the development effects of electrification across Brazil over the period 1960–2000. We simulate a time series of hypothetical electricity grids for Brazil for the period 1960–2000 that show how the grid would have evolved had infrastructure investments been made based solely on geography-based cost considerations. Using the model as an instrument, we document large positive effects ...

India accounts for a third of the world’s population without access to electricity and about 40% of those without access to modern energy. Such a situation exists despite several initiatives and policies to support poor households. Alarmed by the gravity of the situation, the government has recently announced an ambitious programme of rural electrification. This paper looks into the energy acce...