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is also adept in maintaining power systems. Hence, they can train local personnel in the basic areas and offer
specialized training to households or locals on a scheduled basis. The people trained will form part of the
utilities extended service workforce. It is intended that the system’s maintenance can be conducted by local
households with oversight from the utility. This gives more autonomy to the residents and so the utility can
conduct spontaneous checks and balances.

Utility personnel working on the RES model would need to have a variety of competencies giving rise to a
multidisciplinary individual. In some instances, a multidisciplinary team may be warranted. Professionals
versed in anthropology, sociology, human development, economics, environmental studies, climate sciences
and engineering would need to be consulted with so that prudent systems would emerge. This effort may seem
great for a small number of people with no electricity, but it is not. It may cost significantly less than the havoc
that would result when such collective inter-disciplinary knowledge is ignored and/or not consulted with. From
such practices, new concepts and techniques may become apparent that would better inform the upgrades
of depreciated equipment and for further adaptation in the distributed generation on the grid network.

THE ESSENTIAL REMOTE ELECTRICITY SERVICE NEEDS
The essential remote electricity service could be determined using techniques developed and presented by
Blair et.al . Together, the utility with the residents will review the engineering, the anthropogenic changes,
3
climate and weather variability, and economic conditions to reach an agreement, establish the essential
electricity demand, and the capacity of the primary energy supply solutions. This will be the first phase of
the emergent design process. The next level will be incorporating the equipment manufactures. While the
utility would be privy to some technical products, OEMs would have better options for devices that would
work best in remote areas given the environmental conditions, geographical locations, and opportunities
to integrate remote access to solicit information to inform preventative maintenance actions and system
upgrades. Therefore, bringing the OEMs on board at this stage will help to ensure that the solutions are
designed to cater for specific needs and that they optimize the equipment’s functionality. Such a design
initiative will result in a customized solution that is appropriate to that community.
THE ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER
The original equipment manufacturers may range from suppliers of engines and piping to digital communication
device manufacturers. Remote communities have been known to operationalize customized components in the
form of mini and micro grid solutions for lighting purposes. However, when the customized systems fail, some of
the key components are not locally available and may require technical expertise to replace them. So, residents
often use their ingenuity and replace them with a combination of off-the-shelf, readily available, mass-produced
alternatives and local components which they may have as spares or replicas which they created themselves.

When the OEMs include system monitoring devices to track the health of key devices, then arrangements can
be made in ample time to have the correct replacements added to the system. Otherwise from the inception,
OEMs can plan to use the readily available devices as replacements, making replacements easier. Challenges
also exist in the quality of materials used to replace items locally. Off-the-shelf products often would require
some retrofitting to work in sub-optimal conditions. Such a mismatch with product design and operating
conditions can now be addressed during the second stage of the emergent design process.

The third and final stage of the design process will be the gamification of the new electricity system to be
established via the OEM/utility relationship. A virtual model of the solution is developed for the residents to
interact with and learn firsthand about the operating nuisances. Therefore, they will become knowledgeable
about potential network failures, and their response to the breakdowns can be assessed. This feedback from
the virtual experience with the energy initiative would provide further intelligence to the final components
and implementation.

3 Blair, N., Pons, D., Krumdieck, S.: Electrification in remote communities: Assessing the value of electricity using a community action research approach in
Kabakaburi, Guyana. Sustainability 11(9), 2566 (2019)

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