Sustainability of Renewable Off-Grid Technology for Rural Electrification: A Comparative Study Using the IAD Framework

Heksi Lestari, Maarten Arentsen, Hans Bressers, Budhi Gunawan, Johan Iskandar and Parikesit
Additional contact information
Heksi Lestari: Department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability (CSTM), University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands
Maarten Arentsen: Department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability (CSTM), University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands
Hans Bressers: Department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability (CSTM), University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands
Budhi Gunawan: Graduate School of Environmental Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
Johan Iskandar: Graduate School of Environmental Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
Parikesit: Graduate School of Environmental Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung 40132, Indonesia

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-17

Abstract: This paper analyses the implementation of renewable off-grid technologies in rural areas, especially where an extension to the national electricity grid was not considered economically feasible. Implementation of remote, stand-alone, electricity technologies as alternatives to a grid connection to provide sustainable electricity access have often failed with many planned projects not realised or abandoned. Our initial assumption was that stand-alone electricity project exhibiting higher scores on sustainability indicators would benefit communities more and make their endurance more likely. However, the impact of the stand-alone technology was often overruled or its quality weakened by government preferences wishing to realise a connection to the central electricity grid. Empirically, the study compares three cases of stand-alone micro-hydropower projects and three cases of stand-alone solar photovoltaic projects in Bogor Regency, Indonesia. It is based on qualitative document analysis, complemented by multiple rounds of semi-structured interviews and observations. The paper assesses the extent to which each project met indicators of technical, economic, social, environmental, and institutional sustainability. The paper tries to explain the endurance of the project from these sustainability scores and uses additional explanations from Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. The findings show that, for the studied local communities, the attractiveness of a grid connection overrules the virtues of a stand-alone electricity project, despite its quality, successful operation and impact. Our research also shows that government policy priorities changed in the rural electrification programme for some communities. In these situations, the off-grid rural electrification programme predominantly provided only temporary access to sustainable electricity for remote local communities that remained waiting and hoping for a grid connection to connect them to fossil fuel-dominated electricity.

Keywords: rural electrification; off-grid; sustainability; rules in use; endurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/12/4512/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/12/4512/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:12:p:4512-:d:186602

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().