Solar recharging stations - selling hours of solar lighting in the evenings

Transcription

1 1 Solar recharging tation - elling hour of olar lighting in the evening The olar lantern ervice of Sunlabob uing commercial charging tation in the village May 2008 Summary Village entrepreneur rent large olar charging tation that are et up at a central place in the village. They ue them to recharge portable and exchangeable lantern and other equipment (mobile phone, radio, laptop, etc). The village houehold pay a charging fee that cover all cot. Thi configuration allow to take advantage of economie of cale on the charging and control equipment. The reulting recharging fee for the lantern i comparable to keroene cot of houehold for lighting. Each lantern ha an integrated microproceor that give the lantern a unique identity and monitor and afeguard it battery. During each recharging the charging tation collect data on the ue and tatu of the lantern. The data i analyzed for enuring high efficiency of all equipment, and for trutworthy and reliable carbon trading. Invetment are through private channel for the charging tation, and public grant into revolving fund for purchaing the firt batch of lamp for launching the village entrepreneur. Thi reult in a PPP for providing electric lighting among poor houehold in remote rural village. Challenge Solar lantern are now being widely propagated a a olution for lighting in remote village away from the grid. However, experience how that the lantern fail much earlier than would be expected from the life expectancy of olar equipment. Thi i due to cheap low quality component being ued in order to cut cot for the lantern and thereby make them affordable for rural houehold. Furthermore batterie are irregularly charged, and houehold engage in "hotwiring", ie. try to ue the charge for operating other equipment. Becaue of thi the batterie fail too early.

2 2 Independent olar lantern with own panel therefore are till uneconomical for rural houehold in the long run. Thi ha reulted in olar lighting till not making a broad breakthrough in poor rural area. Keroene till rule the lighting market away from the grid. The challenge therefore i to achieve an operational ytem for olar lantern that can. 1...ue tate-of-the-art charging equipment and tamper proof unit to exploit the full life expectancy of the component 2...tightly control the ue of and charge tatu of the lantern and monitor the life cycle of their component, thereby increaing their real on ite efficiency, and 3...thereby reduce cot per hour of light and thu to be able to commercially compete with keroene lantern at houehold level. With uch innovation olar lighting can make a breakthrough in the vat number of low income poor rural houehold. Sunlabob repone Sunlabob ha reponded to thi challenge by developing a package whereby a village entrepreneur operate a large olar charging tation rented from Sunlabob. The entrepreneur then charge portable lamp belonging to him/her, which can circulate in the houehold of the village. For each recharging the entrepreneur collect a fee. All collected fee together cover all the cot of operating the whole ytem on a commercial bai. For the houehold the recharging fee i a regular mall expene jut like buying keroene at the village hop. But with thee rechargeable olar lantern they get more and afer light at lower cot than from keroene. A fully operational ytem in a village comprie of: one large olar array one battery charging tation lantern (depending on ize of olar array and battery charging tation) an electronic ytem control unit Technical detail The Lantern Unit: The Lantern Unit i a light bulb with it battery. It i portable and can be taken home, hung up, or tood on a table, etc. It i ealed in a robut and tamper-proof caing. The Lantern Unit' internal microproceor add up the time the lantern ha been in ue. After 9 hour of lighting operation have elaped, a lowly flahing LED warning light inform the uer that one hour of operation i left. After another 30 minute, the LED tart flahing at a higher frequency to indicate the upcoming hutdown. After a total uage of 10 hour, the Lantern Unit hut off and cannot be turned on again by the cutomer. If the Lantern Unit i ued a a power upply, e.g. to charge a cellphone, and a low voltage condition i detected (flat battery), the integrated low voltage protection

3 feature diconnect the power outlet and witche off the lamp. 3 During the entire period between charging, the Lantern Unit' power receptacle cannot be ued for charging the unit' battery. Thi enure that no unauthorized charging may occur. In order to prepare for charging, the Lantern Unit i connected to the Sytem Control Unit. Once it' connected to the SCU, the Lantern Unit can be unlocked by chooing the repective option on the SCU' diplay. At the ame time, the SCU read the number of hour the Lantern Unit ha been ued ince the lat charging and write it to the charging log, along with the Lantern Unit' unique ID and the current date and time. The Lantern Unit can now be connected to the Battery Charging Unit until it battery i fully charged. While in charging mode, the Lantern Unit' internal controller prevent witching on the lamp, and alo interfere with any attempt of power extraction through the receptacle that exceed a certain period of time. Thi approach enure that only fully charged Lantern Unit are handed out, but doe not interfere with the operation of modern charge regulator that may probe the battery by dicharging it for hort period of time. Once the battery i fully charged, the Lantern Unit can be prepared for handing out to the next houehold that want to exchange it with a pent one. Before the Lantern Unit can be given to a houehold, the SCU need to be plugged in again to activate the Lantern Unit for lighting operation. At the ame time, the SCU record the Lantern Unit' unique ID and write it to the activation log, along with the current date and time. The Sytem Control Unit The SCU i located at the charging tation. It i ued to activate the Lantern Unit for either charging mode or for lighting mode by the houehold, and it i alo ued to collect any data acquired ince the lat recharging. The SCU currently ue an integrated SD torage module to tore the log file and firmware update of the aociated Lantern Unit. It i alo ued to tore the SCU' firmware update and configuration data. The ize of thi torage module can be increaed to accommodate the need of ytem etup with large number of Lantern Unit per SCU. Management Software To facilitate the handling of data collected by many Sytem Control Unit (SCU) in many village, the Sunlabob Lantern Recharging Sytem come with a graphical Management Software. The oftware can be intalled on a PC or Notebook computer running either Linux or Microoft Window (Window 2000, XP, Vita or later) operating ytem. To connect the computer with the Sytem Control Unit in each village, a USB Port i required. For eay proceing of the acquired data, e.g. with the help of preadheet oftware or accounting ytem, the rental and activation log file can be diplayed, copied to the PC clipboard or aved a text file. With the help of the Management Software, firmware update for the Lantern Unit

4 and the SCU can be tranferred to the SCU. The oftware i alo ued to modify configuration etting of the Sytem Control Unit. 4 The cenario can alway be modified, if neceary. Operating time could be changed if a different battery or lamp i ued, warning mode can be adjuted or the protection cheme may be altered to accommodate different power upply mode. All thi can be done by imply uploading a new lantern firmware with the help of the SCU. The management oftware can collect data from a large number of lamp ditributed over a very large area. Thi data can be analyzed in many different way, ie. number of charge and their fluctuation in time, ditribution of lamp, divere intenity of uage in variou area, frequency of witching on and off, average time of witched on light, etc. etc. Operational detail The village entrepreneur who rent the charging tation from Sunlabob are in a franchie agreement with Sunlabob. Thi franchie encompae: 1. The intallation of the charging tation, including the SCU. 2. The regular ervicing of the charging tation 3. Sale of Lantern Unit, and of replacement for their component 4. Regular training for maintaining quality and implementing emerging technical advance 5. Operational advice 6. Buine advice 7. Aitance in local marketing, through PR material, demontration and campaign 8. Aitance in acceing oft loan etc. Normally the rent pay for thee ervice. Variou program funded by public agencie may pick up ome of the cot, eg. the training, etc. Market Benefit for Houehold Village houehold are the final client of thi product and it ervice. They will alway compare olar lantern with the keroene lantern they know. The mall but regular payment of houehold for keroene add up over a year to one of their major cah expenditure. The olar lantern hould achieve a reduction of thi budget item for a typical poor houehold. In effect the operation reult in the ale of hour of light a oppoed to the ale of equipment. Thi i the ame a when a houehold i connected to the grid. Houehold report that they very much prefer light that avoid the tink and moke of keroene. They alo ay that with keroene there i the contant concern with the fire hazard.

5 5 The operational procedure with paying recharging fee i very near to the etablihed behaviour of regularly buying mall amount of keroene from the village hop. The financial flow in the houehold are the ame too. Thi allow for eay adoption. Thi direct competition with keroene-baed lighting i the challenge that the olar lantern are picking up. After being able to demontrate thi in an area, the reulting demand can be huge a there are very many houehold uing keroene for lighting. Benefit for Village Entrepreneur Renting and operating a recharging tation i a utainable village baed enterprie, technically and operationally afeguarded by a franchie arrangement with Sunlabob. The village entrepreneur may not make a living jut from operating a charging tation, but it will be a regular and reliable income that can fit with other income tream. The village entrepreneur will be linked into the franchie network of Sunlabob and through that have expoure to other technologie and ervice that /he may want to explore and develop in the village, eg. operating a TV/Video or even projector with creen, operating cooler, operating a laptop with GPRS internet connection, producing bottle of UV-terilized water for drinking, etc Carbon The oftware allow to unambiguouly attribute each ingle olar recharging to a particular replacement of keroene. Thi i a breakthrough for uch highly dipered uage of keroene. It provide a poibility to bulk all thee minor ue of keroene into deal for aving carbon, thereby further reducing the charging fee and therefore letting houehold benefit directly from the carbon aving they achieve. Rik The mot eriou rik are program and project that ubidize olar lighting or provide it free of cot to communitie. Experience how that after the agency leave the equipment ooner or later begin to fail, with villager then aying that olar technology doen't work. Convincing uch villager to try it again on a rental bai of for a fee ha been difficult in the pat. Keroene eller will loe buine and may retaliate. However thi ha o far not been experienced. Often the keroene elling village hop end up renting the charging tation. A further rik i that a village get acce to the grid, at which time the houehold may want to witch. Thi rik i mitigated by the fact that a) often the intallation fee for a houehold connection are too high for the pooret houehold who are the one targeted with thi ervice, and b) the whole equipment can be dimantled and et up in another village.

6 Global potential The preented operational procedure and technical olution are replicable worldwide anywhere where : there i ufficient unlight there i a population organized in village or if dipered throughout the landcape regularly come to certain point, eg. chool, market, etc. keroene i expenive at the houehold doortep (ie. about 1.5 ud per liter or more) The potential market in rural area worldwide i therefore vat. 6 Invetment opportunitie When exploring the financing of venture with charging tation and olar lantern the trong public interet in rural electrification mut be taken into account, particularly in remote area and particularly for poor houehold. While the objective mut alway be to launch and utain commercially viable village enterprie and the backup franchied ervice by private companie, there i alo a trong cae to be made for public involvement in launching uch venture. However, public financial involvement mut be deigned to encourage private invetment into commercial operation. Subidie, if badly deigned, can be counterproductive. Public and private invetment can mutually leverage each other, where each one on it own may not achieve the intended effect. It i uggeted that private invetor (eg. ocial invetment fund, eco-invetment fund, carbon invetment fund, etc.) can invet in the charging tation to be rented out, wherea publicly launched revolving fund can provide the firt batch of lantern to tart up the buinee of the village entrepreneur. See figure. Note that after the initial invetment by the public, the launched village enterprie are expected to generate enough income to expand and continue their operation through the revolving fund without any further invetment by the public. Of coure private invetment fund can alo invet into lantern and the public can alo invet in charging tation to be rented out. Thi i ometime required to balance out the invetment on both ide (to be later evened out again). In effect thi lead to a Public Private Partnerhip in providing olar lighting to poor houehold in remote village.

7 7 Private-Public interaction for mutual leverage of reource and operation for providing lighting in remote village loan Private Invetor Public Donor grant Private Invetment Fund Loan & Equity SUNLABOB - TSSD own Financing of the privately owned charging tation i through loan and equity from private invetment fund (ocial invetment fund, etc), who act on behalf of private invetor. Financing of the lantern i through grant from a public trut fund into a pecific revolving fund that act on behalf of public donor who provide the tarting capital. RECHARGING STATION in the village rent Village Entrepreneur buy Invetment Return Exchange Cycle with recharging fee Working Lantern in Houehold Public Trut Fund grant Revolving fund for Lantern loan LANTERNS in the village