ABSTRACT
Under the Sahelian climate, hot and dry, no productive agricultural activity can be developed without increasing the preservation capacity. Resolving the rural domestic cold problem is an absolute necessity in every rural decentralised electrification (RDE) project. Many technologies are available to produce cold but which one to pick to include in a RDE project? In this paper we draw up an inventory of the various solutions and we attempt to define the best one for the specific project of DIAGUILI, Mauritania. The refrigeration technology can use various energy sources, solar, electricity, gas, kerosene. We compare and integrate each solution in our global RDE scheme. The comparisons concern the efficiency, the final costs and the conditions of socio-economic adaptation in the local environment. The gas solution appears the cheapest, due to the lower investment and reasonable recurring costs. However, in DIAGUILI hybrid generator mini-grid scheme, PV remains an interesting solution. But the most promising solution seems to be the production of domestic cold by thermal absorption. In the future, the demand will concern the cold-rooms and the freezers for productive activities, which can be best satisfied in good technical and economical balance by the absorption systems.
