8. “Rural Planning” – Exploiting New Decentralised Business Models

Main takeaways:

• A big driver of urbanisation is the lack of opportunity in remote and rural communities
• This has been due to limited energy access options. New decentralised energy models are however becoming increasingly viable
• This, together with better Connectivity, has the potential to reduce the opportunity gap between cities and rural communities and lead to balanced growth

“The country is lyric, the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect musical drama.”

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Urbanisation is increasingly shaping the world. The developed world is mostly urban. The developing world is seeing a steady migration to cities as countries transition from being primarily agrarian to being led by industrial and services economies. But a large part of the world is still rural. This includes regions in the developing world that have historically lacked access to the road and rail networks or to power grids. This also includes remote locations in naturally occurring terrains like mountains, deserts, valleys or islands, or in clusters that are designed to be remote, e.g. resorts, nature reserves, military bases, monasteries or ashrams.

Energy access to such remote or rural communities has historically been either too expensive or impractical, or not environmentally friendly (think kerosene lamps or diesel gen-sets).  This has limited activities and economic pursuits in rural areas, and led to urban migration. The increasing viability of decentralised business models however holds the tantalising prospect of slowing the urbanisation trend.

Typically when large power plants have been built in remote locations, they have invited protests. The local populace would disproportionately bear the social and environmental costs, and see few of the benefits. Emissions from the plants have polluted the local air leading to health issues. They have destabilised eco-systems by dumping effluents into local streams and water bodies. In some case they have impacted local livelihoods, necessitating resettlement of communities. Renewable generation however in most cases has been a different story (except wind, in cases where they were perceived as an eyesore on the landscape). Solar PV and mini-hydro plants are minimally invasive to local communities.

Even wind farms are becoming far more practical to install in remote locations as a result of innovations. Typically, the biggest challenge of wind farms is the constraint imposed on the practical height of wind towers and the diameter of the rotor blades. Apart from being difficult to transport, even at their dimensional limits they can access a very variable wind resource. And roughly 80% of the energy generated comes from barely 20% of the rotor tip blades. Innovators like Google’s Makani have come with a deviously simple solution – to get rid of the tower and the 80% of the rotor blade that is not very productive. So what you’re left with is an “energy kite” that simulates the tip of the rotor blade that makes most of its generated energy. It’s easy to transport to the remotest locations, accesses a more reliable wind stream at a much higher altitude, and is very flexible to operate.

A combination of power generation, storage and micro-grid solutions is becoming increasingly practical and economic for remote and rural locations, displacing wood, kerosene and diesel. Regardless of whether we live in urban or rural environments, the Convergence across sectors is creating new operating and business models not just at the level of business solutions for consumers (B2C) and businesses (B2B), but also at the level of territories (B2T). Together with strong Connectivity and a broader set of digital solutions, this has the potential to reduce the convenience gap between urban and rural areas, while allowing us to avail of the pristine appeal of remote environments. In this harmony will be sown the seed of our sustainable future.