4. Distributed Rural Electrification in Cambodia

Official estimates in 2004 were that 15% of Cambodians had electricity access. This would not be surprising given that the population is still largely rural or lives in smaller towns. Eighty percent of the population lives below the district town level and 75% live at the commune (or village) level (Cam.NGO.Dom March 2006). Électricité du Cambodge is responsible for roughly 9% of the electrified population and the other 6% is from licensed generators and distributors, primarily at the district level. This low level of electrification by the official utility and licensed entities is a legacy of the poor development and long-term military conflicts that have plagued this country. However, at the same time, official surveys show nearly 50% of Cambodian households owning a television set (National Institute of Statistics undated). More recent estimates are that 24% of households have lighting provided by either publicly or privately generated electricity, another 38% use batteries and 36% use kerosene (National Institute of Statistics 2009). However, another estimate is that 90–95% of the population may have access to a basic level of electricity, enough for a lightbulb in the evening (Cam.NGO.Dom March 2006). How then to explain this difference? The rest of the population is being served primarily by battery charging services and village level networks developed and run by small entrepreneurs. These Rural Electricity Entrepreneurs (REEs), as they are known, may supply 75–85% of the population and are completely unlicensed, unregulated, and are not supported by the government or donors (making exact numbers difficult to determine). This pattern of electrification in Cambodia presents an excellent opportunity to study a distributed electrification model that is widespread but usually at the margins of electricity supply in most countries.