IC is composed of spatial data spanning major towns, first and second tier roads, electricity infrastructure (transmission grid, location of government, and entrepreneur run off-grid electrification projects), population density, access to education, trade centers (markets), healthcare, and access to financial services.
What rural electrification was eight decades ago, broadband access might be today: a blessing not widely enough enjoyed.
For instance, from 2010 to 2012, Senegal's rural electrification project (pdf) increased access to electricity in 191 target villages more than five-fold, from 17,000 to 90,000.
"It's all due to air conditioning," said MIT environmental economics professor Michael Greenstone, one of the paper's co-authors, adding that factors including increased electrification and health-care access did not affect heat-related mortality.
Great differences remain concerning the access to electrification between the urban and the rural sector.
It is also suggested that the use of HMGS can be considered as a good alternative to promote electrification projects and enhance energy access within remote Iranian areas or other developing countries enjoying the same or similar climatic conditions.
For the indigenous communities that live in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the geographical remoteness of the area prevents them from having access to grid electrification.
On average, entrepreneur-ran electrification projects (microgrids and solar access) have higher natural and infrastructural capital than government microgrids and proposed microgrid greenfield projects.
Pico-hydropower is a viable technology that can be integrated into a decentralized, off-grid approach to rural electrification in regions that currently have only limited access to electricity.
The measures include subsidized housing to persuade homebuyers to fill their new dwellings with furniture, and rural electrification projects that will give farmers access to affordable power.
