Criteria for evaluating small-scale rural energy technologies : the FLERT approach (fuel - linked energy resources and tasks)

This paper describes a complex and highly structured analytic framework - the Fuel-Linked Energy Resources and Tasks (FLERT) approach - for evaluating and comparing SSET"s in relation to specific village needs. To provide sufficient data so that planners can balance the various social, environmental, and economic costs and benefits represented by alternative SSET"s within a particular setting, the FLERT framework tabulates physical, social, and environmental resource requirements. A set of accounting rules for determining resources is provided. The FLERT framework also tabulates task categories, specifically, fuel form, fuel equivalent measures, spatial (geographic) and temporal fuel availability, and fuel co-products. Finally, a "specification plate" approach is used to distill the resource and task categories down to the most important and measurable few; a list of 23 specifications which can be applied to any SSET is provided. A 7-page bibliography is included.