Baseline Study for Access to Energy trough a Micro-Hydro Power Project

A baseline study has been conducted for studying the impact of the micro-hydro power plant project on Rubagabaga River, Rwanda on poverty reduction and improving living standards of  people.

In a country like Rwanda which is rich in water resources and where population is highly distributed over hills and mountains without any access to electricity; off-grid hydro power appears to be a promising option for rural electrification.

CALIMAX Ltd. implements a Micro-hydropower project on Rubagabaga River which includes generating and transmitting electricity continuously through a micro-grid.  The project, which is subsidized by Daey Ouwens Fund, targets households, public utilities and small scale business in several districts of Rwanda.

It is expected that the project, which will start running in early 2012, will have positive influences on poverty reduction via sustainable energy production. To understand and quantify the contribution of the project to the region, current situation with regard to energy access, poverty and environment had to be studied.

For a period of six weeks, several interviews have been conducted with local key persons and few hundreds of questionnaires have been filled by households and entrepreneurs from the region. The stydy was executes with the help of five local students that are organized by Ezgi Berber, MSc student from Eindhoven University of Technology. Shortly the results of this baseline study will be available via the Daey Ouwens website.