Technical and economic assessment of distributed generation to increase energy coverage in rural areas

The grid expansion is the most usual alternative to increase the coverage of distribution utility in rural areas. However, this alternative has several constraints related with its costs, the dispersion of costumers, assets configuration (mostly radial), and reliability, among others. This paper summarizes the main issues concerning to supply the energy demand in rural areas. Technical and economic assessment methods are proposed to determine the best alternative that satisfies energy requirements in specific rural areas. Distributed Generation (DG) is suggested as a competitive option in two cases: islanded and interconnected operation. For each scenario, technical requirements are examined to be met. Similarly, an economic evaluation is performed and finally the results are contrasted.