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The rural population needs energy to live and work in agricultural and artisanal enterprises. Rural areas have more space to build and operate small off‐grid systems, large grid‐connected power plants and for heat production. The question is whether decentralized off‐grid electricity production is more relevant than centralized electricity production with networks. This chapter considers the examples of Pays de Fayence in southern France and Bokhol in Senegal to illustrate these challenges. It comparatively summarizes the characteristics of the two rural territories and the photovoltaic projects studied. The amount of investment and turnover of the two photovoltaic plants are similar, while the Bokhol plant is almost three times more powerful than the Pays de Fayence plant. This illustrates the drastic cost reduction that has occurred in 10 years in photovoltaic modules and, at the same time, the reduction in guaranteed feed‐in tariffs.

Drawn again to her rural beginnings, Iris settled on a farm, but not one as well-appointed as Temora had been in Pennsylvania. “Try to imagine” she wrote Edmund Schiddel shortly after she bought La Bonne Font,¹ “living in a semi-ruined farmhouse with no light, no plumbing and almost no nothing (you’ve done it!) in a sudden snap of cold and rain. All the time goes in fetching water from the brook and dragging in wood to try to cook and wash, and hauling out pails. I said no plumbing and I meant it, there is a handy pigsty but when