Rural Electrification in Africa: New Technologies are Needed

Nowadays electricity has become essential for improving the quality of life of the population. In the developing countries rural electrification continues to face hardships because traditional solutions remain expensive for the very poor rural population. For these countries millions of people do not always have access to electricity: these people mainly reside in rural areas. The classical solution which is unrealistic below a certain power threshold delays rural electrification and aggravates the exodus towards urban centres already congested and unable to absorb this migration. Thus to combat late electrification new technologies are needed when dealing with rural electrification. In this document we describe the principles of some energy extraction techniques directly from the high voltage lines and other techniques profitable methods for the developing countries. This document is important for a wide audience: teachers researchers students engineers rural electrification professionals politicians non-governmental organizations.