The Power of Electricity: How Effective Is It in Promoting Sustainable Development in Rural Off-Grid Islands in the Philippines?

Abstract

Electrification plays a crucial role in the advancement of rural communities but establishing its impact to the communities’ sustainable development remains a challenge. This paper presents a pragmatic framework for assessing how electrification affects sustainable development at the grassroots level with eight indicators in the economic, technical, social, and environmental dimensions highlighted. An exploratory factor analysis approach is applied to determine how these dimensions contribute to the community’s overall sustainable development. The framework is applied in two islands in the Philippines of less than 500 households and varying electrification levels. Results indicate that Gilutongan Island, which has less than 24-h electricity access rarely find productive uses of electricity and still make use of conventional fuels for lighting. Meanwhile, Cobrador Island, which has 24-h access see improvements in almost all aspects, although they are slightly burdened by the unaffordability of tariffs. This means that islands with limited hours for electricity access rarely experience positive impacts to their socioeconomic development while the opposite is true for islands with longer access. The framework can be a useful tool for decision- and policy-makers to assess electrification in rural off-grid communities and to streamline efforts in helping these communities achieve sustainable development.

Contribution of Rural Electrification in Improving People’s Livelihood in Tanzania: A Case of Mpanda District, Tanzania

“…There are now more than 5 welding workshops in the village" (Respondents 24, 26th Aug 2022).Therefore, electrification is an important factor for sustainability of businesses. The findings are similar to those of studies conducted by Vela-Cobos et al (2021) and Lozano and Taboada (2021) who discovered that different economic activities were being performed in rural areas as a result of rural electrification with the intention of increasing household income earnings (add some more literature to support the findings of your study.…”

Off-Grid Electrification Using Renewable Energy in the Philippines: A Comprehensive Review

“…Others looked at the social impacts of improving the community's electrification system by surveying communities and analyzing the data using different methodologies. Lozano and Taboada used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on survey data to determine how various technical and social factors contribute to the overall sustainable development of a community [71]. Looking at factors affecting the electricity use behaviors of consumers, a simple exploratory data analysis based on household surveys was performed by Bertheau [72] while Hong and Abe implemented the multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) method [73].…”

“…In the case of the corpus of studies available on Philippine off-grid electrification, only a few papers have looked at the status of built RE systems in the country, with the majority focusing on the systems of Pangan-an Island in Cebu and Cobrador Island in Romblon. The documentation of the effects of renewable electrification on these communities is primarily led by Bertheau et al [72,87] and Lozano, et al [5,69,71,77] and can cover the HRES-community system as a socio-technical assembly. Papers on post-implementation analysis of HRES in a community were found mostly from the case study and policy analyses group, and with a single paper from the technology layout and components group.…”

Dynamic assessment of China’s re-electrification level considering carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals: A study based on functional data analysis

“…An extensive assessment on rural electrification level and the sustainability of specific electrification projects were conducted (Brent and Rogers, 2010;López-González et al, 2019). Amid the lack of a standardized assessment method, five aspects stand out as commonalities among many research frameworks: technological level, institutional factors, economic impact, and social and environmental impact (Ilskog, 2008;Brent, and Rogers, 2010;Hong and Abe, 2012;Lozano and Taboada, 2021;Wassie and Adaramola, 2021). Adusah-Poku and Takeuchi (2019) investigated the dynamics of rural electrification in Ghana and the impact of community electrification project on community welfare.…”