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Financial Evaluation of SPV Lanterns for Rural Lighting in India

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Financial Evaluation of SPV Lanterns for Rural Lighting in India ELSEVIER Solar Energy Materials and Solar Ceils 44 (1996) 261-270 Financial evaluation of SPV lanterns for rural lighting in India Seemin Rubab, Tara Chandra Kandpal * Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi Hauz, Khas, New Delhi 110 016, India Abstract Financial evaluation of solar photovoltaic (SPV) lanterns has been undertaken. The factors influencing the capital as well as the maintenance cost of SPV lantern have been analyzed. Cost per hour of illumination and cost per unit useful energy have been used for comparison of SPV lanterns with other options of rural domestic lighting. The benefits accrued to the user of an SPV lantern have been quantified in terms of the monetary worth of the conventional fuels being saved. Keywords: Solar photovoltaic lantern; Domestic lighting; Financial analysis I. Introduction The solar photovoltaic (SPV) lanterns are presently being promoted in India as a domestic lighting option for rural households with no direct access to grid electricity. In the past year several incentives have been introduced to motivate the potential users to purchase the SPV lantern. These include provision of direct subsidy and soft loan to the users [1,2]. The large scale acceptance of SPV lanterns in rural areas will depend upon a variety of socio-techno-economic factors. Since the initial cost of the SPV lantern is relatively very high as compared to other domestic lighting options, the financial viability of an investment on an SPV lantern would play a crucial role in its dissemination. A modest attempt to analyze and study some of the issues related to the financial viability of SPV lanterns is made in this paper. * Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] 0927-0248/96/$15.00 Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII S0927-0248(96)00044-X 262 S. Rubab, T. Chandra Kandpal / Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 44 (1996) 261-270 2. Analysis 2.1. Design of the SPV lantern The SPV lantern (Fig. l) presently being disseminated in India consists of a PV module, a storage battery, a charge regulator, a light source (generally a compact fluorescent lamp, CFL) with fitting, an inverter, cables, switches, and appropriate housing [3-5]. The charge regulator is used to protect battery from overcharging/deep discharge and also to prevent reverse flow of current. In India, SPV lanterns are normally manufactured using 5 watt or 7 watt CFLs. Some Indian manufacturers (SOPHOS and Ritika) offer lanterns with 9 watt CFL also. These days the casing which houses the electronics (inverter and charge regulator, etc.) and battery is generally made of fiber reinforced plastic. Some manufacturers in India (BHEL and Ritika for example) provide SPV lanterns with aluminum and mild steel casing also. The size of the SPV lantern, in principle, can be specified either in terms of the power rating of the module/CFL or the capacity of the storage battery. In this work the power rating of CFL has been used to specify the size of the lantern and it is assumed that the module and battery are sized for a given duration of lighting (in hours, h) on daily basis. As per the existing practice of SPV lantern manufacturers in India, mono-crystalline silicon solar cell modules of ratings between 9-15 peak watts are CFL •,,- Modul¢ (-- / indicator [ ~ r~ / cable Fig. 1. Diagram of SPV lantern. S. Rubab, T. Chandra Kandpal / Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 44 (1996) 261-270 263 supplied with CFLs of 5-9 watt rating. Sometimes lanterns are manufactured with a given module and battery size and supplied with CFLs of different power ratings with an understanding that the operating hours of the lantern will be adjusted accordingly. The size of module (in peak watts Wp) corresponding to a given power rating of the CFL (in watt W) may be estimated from the following simple relation [6] Wp = Wh/IGr/b'qi. (1) The factors T~b and r/i, respectively, take the battery and the invertor efficiencies into account and 1G is the annual mean daily global solar radiation in kWh/m2/day at the end-use location. For sizing of the battery, the number of days of storage (N,) and the maximum depth of discharge (D) of the battery are also taken into consideration. The battery storage capacity S in ampere hours (Ah) may be estimated as S = WhNJVbrlbrli D, (2) where Vb is the battery voltage. 2.2. Capital cost of the SPV lantern An important aspect in the cost analysis of SPV lanterns is to study the impact of the power rating of the CFL and the duration of lighting on the cost of individual components. Table 1 presents the ratings of modules and battery, along with their costs (as estimated in the present work) for lanterns with (3-11) watt CFLs. Table 1 also gives the costs of other components and the total cost of SPV lanterns of various sizes. It is assumed that the cost of PV module depends linearly on its size. For such small systems, the variation in the cost of storage batteries with capacity is not yet very well established in the Indian market. Since battery capacity and consequently its size and weight increases with load, the housing has to be sturdier and larger for high power rating lamps. As the length of CFL increases with its power rating, the size of the chimney (acrylic sheet) which encloses the lamp will also increase proportionately. Using the estimated costs of lanterns as given in Table 1, the following cost function relating the capital cost C c (in Rs (Indian rupees; 1 US $ ~ Rs 35/- in January 1996)) of SPV lantern with its power rating (W) has been developed by regression analysis C~ = 1366W °6. (3) The capital cost of SPV lanterns shows considerable economies of scale with respect to its power rating. For a specific power rating of the CFL, the size of the components and consequently the cost of lantern will depend on the daily hours of operation only. Fig. 2 shows the variation in capital cost of 5 W SPV lantern with the daily hours of illumination. 2.3. Operation and maintenance cost The SPV lantern being disseminated in India are normally designed to be a maintenance free unit. As regards the labour involved in the daily operation of the SPV lantern, it merely consists of exposing the PV module to the sun during the day and 4~ Table 1 Component-wise cost of different size SPV lanterns @ Lamp (CFL) Cost of inverter Module Battery (12 V) Cost of charge Cost of cable Total component Market b cost regulator (Rs) and housing (Rs) cost (Rs) C~ (Rs) Power Cost and fitting (Rs) Rating Cost Capacity Cost rating (W) (Rs ~) (Wp) (Rs) (Ah) (Rs) 3 50 200 5 900 6 500 300 250 2200 2750 5 60 200 8 1440 10 600 300 275 2875 3600 7 65 200 l0 1800 15 700 300 300 3365 4200 9 75 200 14 2520 18 750 300 325 4170 5210 2. 11 90 200 16 2880 22 850 300 350 4670 5840 ~' 1 US $ = Rs 35/- in January 1996 (Rs = Indian Rupees). h Including an additional 25% of the total component cost as manufacturers and distributors profit. Note: A flat subsidy of Rs 2000.0 per lantern is provided by the government. 4~ 4~ I S. Rubab, T. Chandra Kandpal / Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 44 (1996) 261-270 265 6000 , , , , , , , 5000 v 4000 Ca o 3000 2000 1000 I I i I i I J 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Hours of Operation (h) Fig. 2. Variation in capital cost with hour of operation. bringing it back to the point of end-use in the evening. On a normal course it would not take more than half an hour per day, the opportunity cost of which may be neglected considering the high level of unemployment and underemployment in rural India. The useful life of the SPV lantern is reported to be 20 years [3], which is actually the life of PV module and the housing. The best estimates of the useful lives of battery, CFL and the electronics are 3, 5 and 10 years, respectively [3]. In the present study the annual maintenance cost of the SPV lantern has been estimated by determining equivalent annual amounts of their periodic replacement within the useful life of the lantern (Table 2). Table 2 Annual maintenance cost of different size SPV lanterns Power rating of SPV lantern (W) Total annualized maintenance cost C m (Rs) 3 240 5 278 7 315 9 335 11 374 266 S. Rubab, T. Chandra Kandpal / Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 44 (1996) 261-270 2.4. Financial evaluation Two figures of merit -- the cost per hour of illumination (Chl) and the cost per unit useful energy (Cuu) -- have been used for financial evaluation. The cost per hour of illumination (Rs/hr) may be obtained by dividing the annualized cost of the SPV lantern with the total duration of lighting provided by it during a year. Thus Ch, = [ CcR( d,t~) + Cm]/Uoh, (4) where R(d,t~) is the capital recovery factor for a discount rate d and the useful life t~ of the SPV lantern, and N,, is the number of days in a year on which the lantern can be operated. The use of Chl for comparison of different lighting systems, however, assumes that the levels of illumination provided by them are equivalent. The cost per unit useful energy, Cuu (Rs/kilolumen-hr), may be obtained as the ratio of annualized cost of the lantern to the annual amount of energy delivered by it, coo = 103[CcR(d,t ) + Cm]/U,,4 h, (5) where ~b is the luminous flux (lumen) of the CFL.
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