Rural Electrification in Botswana-A Single Wire Earth Return Approach

摘要

Botswana is a land-locked Southern African Country covering some 580,000 Km² area. With a population of some 1.5 million people, it`s average population is about 3 people per Km². It is even less than this figure in the rural areas of the country. The rural villages are dispersed and very sparsely populated, thus making electrification on the national scale problematic. Because of these factors, single wire earth return (SWER) system and solar photo voltage system could be considered as potential solution to rural electrification in Botswana. The paper analyses the two systems, compares the barriers to their widespread adoption and estimation the cost of each of the systems. The paper concludes by proposing the signal wire earth return system as more cost effective than the stand alone photo voltaic system and recommends that SWER should be developed and adopted to solve rural electrification problems in Botswana. Countries with similar rural population pattern could also adopt the SWER system.