Debunking the argument of reaching of electrification target

While you might see the title as provocative, since the goal of full electrification of a nation is a target every country wish to, I will expose how putting emphasis on the timeframe of the target without a clear roadmap would lead to a waste of money and redundant effort. As one example, I have just read again and again studies showing one of Southeast Asia countries (Cambodia) with the target of providing 70% village electrification by 2020 and 100% of household electrification by 2030.

This is good for the country having around 80% of its population lives in rural areas with limited electricity access in 2011. As a consequence for such strategy, the setup of rural electrification enterprises emerged and through these enterprises people in provinces and villages far away from the grid have access to electricity. Two means of electricity generation are available: diesel with fuel or biomass gasification. Across the time,it is true that electrification ratio in the country increases. It was noted that in 2013, when a workshop on rural electrification was held in Myanmar, one participant from the Electricity Authority of Cambodia stated that at the end of 2012 the electrification ratio is around 40% as compared to 27% in 2011. This was largely contributed by the use diesel and also biomass gasification where on the first instance, around 7,000 kW (7 MW) capacity of biomas plants was installed only as a demonstration project.

The use of biomass gasification is plausible. The country inherits a lot of biomass feedstocks particularly those from rice husks. Thus, the fuel price is either zero (for rice planters and millers) or very low. The output generated can go to a substantial capacity especially for the productive use of energy (PUE). The cost of installing gasifier can be spreaded through regular payments from villagers or from cooperative. In the case of the 7 MW above, as an impact four more gasifiers were requested. Accordingly, the know-how of biomass gasification was tapped and the technology was adopted. Local manufacturers tried to construct the technology to be used domestically.

What happen then was due to lack of technology details, many local manufacturers fail to produce a sufficient standard of biomass gasification. Some of them managed to produce with mediocre results. The electricity delivered was not stable and some were unable to continue operating. Only those small developers that imported the gasifiers from proven technology were able to sustain their operation.

This was also quite similar with the experience of fulfilling electrification ratio target in Vietnam. While during the last ten years the country has successfully raised its electrification ratio to a substantial number, there are and will be issues of grid and off-grid quality that need to be seriously taken. And this comes with very expensive price.