page_title: Mini-grids
section_title: Rural Electrification
hierarchical_section_title: Mini-grids / Background / Rural Electrification
context_page_description: A mini-grid is an off-grid electricity distribution network involving small-scale electricity generation. Often conflated with microgrids, a mini-grid is sometimes defined as having a power rating less than 11kW and as being disconnected from utility-scale grids. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defines a mini-grid with a power rating below 15MW and disconnected from larger electric grids. Mini-grids are used as a cost-effective solution for electrifying rural communities where a grid connection is challenging in terms of transmission and cost for the end user population density.
context_section_description: Many rural communities remain isolated from larger, traditional grids due to geographic and economic constraints. The electrification of the global off-grid rural population remains a major task of many developing and developed countries, and according to the International Energy Agency in the 2013 World Energy Outlook, mini-grids represent the most cost-effective way to provide universal electricity access to these populations. Due to new technology innovations that have resulted in declining costs both for mini-grids and energy generation sources, specifically solar and wind power, mini-grids have the potential to electrify remote areas that would otherwise remain outside of a grid connection. Mini-grids are a cost-effective and timely solution for more isolated areas in which connection to the main electric grid is unavailable, and represent a practical option for meeting the energy demand in Sub‐Saharan Africa, South and East Asia, and Small Island Developing States.
  Millions of people remain without access to electricity today, and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals commit the global community to provide a solution. The map on the right demonstrates energy disparity between developed countries such as the US, China, and Europe while South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia still have many communities that lack reliable, sustainable, affordable energy. Mini-grids are currently being viewed as one of the most effective solutions to bringing energy to rural populations where the energy demands are such that individual stand-alone systems such as nano-grids are impractical but where the population is large enough to require a larger grid system. Because a grid must balance the supply of energy with the demand, the mini-grid's larger size and flexibility allows for safer and more affordable power.
caption: Electricity consumption per country in million kWh, from CIA Factbook, accessed April 2006
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