Browsing by Author "Attia, Benjamin M."

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    Financing energy access through community participatory equity: building and modeling a multidimensional energy access framework for rural community-level PV micro-grids to inform market entry strategy
    (University of Delaware, 2016) Attia, Benjamin M.
    This thesis seeks to further the academic definition and practitioner implementation of energy access solutions by developing and applying a theoretical multidimensional energy access framework that understands the drivers and barriers to successful rural energy implementation through the lens of four dimensions: techno-economic, socio-economic, agro-economic and institutional-economic. The rapid deployment and acceleration of rural energy access interventions is also catalytically dependent on financing, and understanding this multidimensionality may help institutional and private investors and policymakers close the $1 trillion financing gap for rural micro-grids. Because of their open-access nature, micro-grids can be considered as common property resources capable of community management without a tragedy of the commons under a theoretically Ostromian Community Participatory Equity (CPE) framework. Cost-driven by the remoteness of the project, these community-managed systems have significant socio-economic benefits and can see significant improvements in project economics and financing through cost decreases that are instead taken on by the community rather than the third-party developer or project company, reducing the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) by over 50%. This work concludes that the CPE framework, especially when paired with grant financing for capital costs and early-stage O&M&M fees, can greatly increase the attractiveness of these projects for investors and end users and enable an informed and targeted market entry strategy for the vast untapped off-grid markets.