IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v16y2012i9p6737-6745.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An investigation of the cost and performance of a solar-powered LED light designed as an alternative to candles in Zambia: A project case study

Author

Listed:
  • Kornbluth, Kurt
  • Pon, Bryan
  • Erickson, Paul

Abstract

The economic, health, and environmental costs of kerosene, candles, and other fuel-based lighting are well-documented. As a result of efforts by the World Bank and other organizations, numerous lighting products incorporating solar photovoltaic and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been introduced in Sub-Saharan Africa. The category of solar portable lights is increasingly popular, in part because the lower retail price of these lights can make them more affordable to lower-income households. The UC Davis Lighting the Way Zambia project sought to explore the minimum costs and performance requirements for a solar portable light targeting candle and kerosene users in Zambia. This paper discusses the product design process, including the establishment of performance requirements and metrics, as well as a cost-optimization exercise used to evaluate key electronic components. The cost structure of the final design is presented with end-user costs and actual manufacturing costs. The results suggest that an 18-lumen solar portable light with a 4-h run time would meet many users’ needs and can be manufactured for less than US$9 per unit, with a cost of $0.34 per 1000 lm-h and a payback period of around 6 months.

Suggested Citation

  • Kornbluth, Kurt & Pon, Bryan & Erickson, Paul, 2012. "An investigation of the cost and performance of a solar-powered LED light designed as an alternative to candles in Zambia: A project case study," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(9), pages 6737-6745.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:16:y:2012:i:9:p:6737-6745
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2012.08.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032112004704
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2012.08.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karekezi, Stephen & Kithyoma, Waeni, 2002. "Renewable energy strategies for rural Africa: is a PV-led renewable energy strategy the right approach for providing modern energy to the rural poor of sub-Saharan Africa?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(11-12), pages 1071-1086, September.
    2. Martinot, E. & Cabraal, A. & Mathur, S., 2001. "World Bank/GEF solar home system projects: experiences and lessons learned 1993-2000," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 39-57, March.
    3. Gustavsson, Mathias & Ellegård, Anders, 2004. "The impact of solar home systems on rural livelihoods. Experiences from the Nyimba Energy Service Company in Zambia," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1059-1072.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Baurzhan, Saule & Jenkins, Glenn P., 2016. "Off-grid solar PV: Is it an affordable or appropriate solution for rural electrification in Sub-Saharan African countries?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1405-1418.
    2. Paul Munro & Greg van der Horst & Simon Willans & Preston Kemeny & Ame Christiansen & Nicole Schiavone, 2016. "Social enterprise development and renewable energy dissemination in Africa: The experience of the community charging station model in Sierra Leone," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 16(1), pages 24-38, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chaurey, Akanksha & Kandpal, Tara Chandra, 2010. "Assessment and evaluation of PV based decentralized rural electrification: An overview," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(8), pages 2266-2278, October.
    2. Baurzhan, Saule & Jenkins, Glenn P., 2016. "Off-grid solar PV: Is it an affordable or appropriate solution for rural electrification in Sub-Saharan African countries?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1405-1418.
    3. Hajat, A. & Banks, D. & Aiken, R. & Shackleton, C.M., 2009. "Efficacy of solar power units for small-scale businesses in a remote rural area, South Africa," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(12), pages 2722-2727.
    4. Diouf, Boucar, 2016. "Tontine: Self-help financing for solar home systems," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 166-174.
    5. Ellegård, Anders & Arvidson, Anders & Nordström, Mattias & Kalumiana, Oscar S & Mwanza, Clotilda, 2004. "Rural people pay for solar: experiences from the Zambia PV-ESCO project," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 29(8), pages 1251-1263.
    6. Pode, Ramchandra, 2013. "Financing LED solar home systems in developing countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 596-629.
    7. Brunet, Carole & Savadogo, Oumarou & Baptiste, Pierre & Bouchard, Michel A., 2018. "Shedding some light on photovoltaic solar energy in Africa – A literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 325-342.
    8. Carole Brunet & Oumarou Savadogo & Pierre Baptiste & Michel A Bouchard & Jean Chrysostome Rakotoary & Andry Ravoninjatovo & Céline Cholez & Corinne Gendron & Nicolas Merveille, 2020. "Impacts Generated by a Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant Can Lead to Conflicts between Sustainable Development Goals: A Review of Key Lessons Learned in Madagascar," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-33, September.
    9. Friebe, Christian A. & Flotow, Paschen von & Täube, Florian A., 2013. "Exploring the link between products and services in low-income markets—Evidence from solar home systems," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 760-769.
    10. Pillot, Benjamin & Muselli, Marc & Poggi, Philippe & Dias, João Batista, 2019. "Historical trends in global energy policy and renewable power system issues in Sub-Saharan Africa: The case of solar PV," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 113-124.
    11. Komatsu, Satoru & Kaneko, Shinji & Ghosh, Partha Pratim, 2011. "Are micro-benefits negligible? The implications of the rapid expansion of Solar Home Systems (SHS) in rural Bangladesh for sustainable development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 4022-4031, July.
    12. Balint, Peter J., 2006. "Bringing solar home systems to rural El Salvador: lessons for small NGOs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 721-729, April.
    13. Mandelli, Stefano & Barbieri, Jacopo & Mereu, Riccardo & Colombo, Emanuela, 2016. "Off-grid systems for rural electrification in developing countries: Definitions, classification and a comprehensive literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1621-1646.
    14. Bond, M. & Fuller, R.J. & Aye, Lu, 2007. "A policy proposal for the introduction of solar home systems in East Timor," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 6535-6545, December.
    15. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & D'Agostino, Anthony L. & Jain Bambawale, Malavika, 2011. "The socio-technical barriers to Solar Home Systems (SHS) in Papua New Guinea: "Choosing pigs, prostitutes, and poker chips over panels"," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1532-1542, March.
    16. D’Agostino, Anthony L. & Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Bambawale, Malavika Jain, 2011. "And then what happened? A retrospective appraisal of China’s Renewable Energy Development Project (REDP)," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3154-3165.
    17. Jacobson, Arne, 2007. "Connective Power: Solar Electrification and Social Change in Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 144-162, January.
    18. Plain, N. & Hingray, B. & Mathy, S., 2019. "Accounting for low solar resource days to size 100% solar microgrids power systems in Africa," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 448-458.
    19. Bond, M. & Fuller, R.J. & Aye, Lu, 2012. "Sizing solar home systems for optimal development impact," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 699-709.
    20. Alda-Vidal, Cecilia & Khalid, Rihab & Foulds, Chris & Royston, Sarah & Greene, Mary, 2023. "Gender imaginaries in energy transitions: How professionals construct and envision gender equity in energy access in the Global South," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:16:y:2012:i:9:p:6737-6745. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.