The Project will connect consumers

The Project will connect consumers in partly electrified rural villages located in 73 provinces. These consumers were not covered by the previous network extensions for reasons of distance from the village center or because they did not live there yet. These unelectrified sub¬villages, which total about 40,000 with 5 to 20 consumers each, have administrative and service linkages with the electrified village centers. There is a significant potential demand for electricity among these consumers as they are well aware of the benefits of electrification because of their nearness to the electrified village centers. By extending the distribution networks, which is part of PEA's least-cost investment program, the Project provides in these conditions the most efficient method to attain electrification of these subvillages. The economic superiority of network extensions to the alternative option of electrifying villages by small diesel power stations is demonstrated by the fact that such isolated diesel based systems account for less than 0.1 percent of PEA's overall operations.