Characterisation of the operation & maintenance phase in PV rural electrification programmes

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(1)UNIVERSIDAD POLITÉCNICA DE MADRID ESCUELA TÉCNICA SUPERIOR DE INGENIERÍA Y SISTEMAS DE TELECOMUNICACIÓN. CHARACTERISATION OF THE OPERATION & MAINTENANCE PHASE IN PV RURAL ELECTRIFICATION PROGRAMMES. THESIS. AUTHOR: LUIS MIGUEL CARRASCO MORENO DIRECTOR: LUIS NARVARTE FERNÁNDEZ MADRID, MAY 2015.

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(3) Dedicado a mis padres, mi hermana, mi abuela, a toda mi familia, mis amigos y cómo no, a Adelita..

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(5) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. "[...] el olmo ya seco de la ermita debe su único verdor a la hiedra que le abraza, pero ella a su vez sólo gracias al viejo tronco logra crecer hacia el sol." José Luis Sampedro (La Sonrisa Etrusca). Escribió Galdós que la experiencia es una llama que no alumbra sino quemando. Creo que en mi vida me he chamuscado bastante, pero no lo he hecho solo y por eso tengo que agradecer a muchas personas todo lo que de ellas he aprendido trabajando codo con codo hasta llegar aquí, empezando por Luis Narvarte, mi tutor y director de tesis, alma mater de este trabajo, excelente persona y amigo, quien me animó a emprenderme en esto de investigar y quien siempre ha estado disponible para escuchar, pensar y resolver. A Eduardo Lorenzo, por su experta mirada desde lo alto que tanto ha servido para enderezar mis torcidos renglones. A todos mis compañer@s del grupo de sistemas fotovoltaicos del IES, que forman entre tod@s el más cordial ambiente de camaradería de trabajo que he conocido. A tod@s mis compañer@s de la extinta Isofoton en España y Marruecos con los que trabajé y aprendí muchas más cosas además de fotovoltaica. Y a much@s más, que aunque no mencionados, fueron fuente de iluminación. Agradezco a Isofoton Maroc s.a.r.l. por su colaboración al poner los enormes cimientos en los que se ha basado el trabajo experimental de esta tesis. Un último reconocimiento a la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid por su ayuda al financiar parte de los estudios llevados a cabo en esta tesis con el proyecto 35_FOTOVOLT perteneciente a la XI Convocatoria de Acciones de Cooperación Universitaria para el Desarrollo.. iii.

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(7) ABSTRACT With 1,300 million people worldwide deprived of access to electricity (mostly in rural environments), photovoltaic solar energy has proven to be a cost‐effective solution and the only hope for electrifying the most remote inhabitants of the planet, where conventional electric grids do not reach because they are unaffordable. Almost all countries in the world have had some kind of rural photovoltaic electrification programme during the past 40 years, mainly the poorer countries, where through different organizational models, millions of solar home systems (small photovoltaic systems for domestic use) have been installed. During this long period, many barriers have been overcome, such as quality enhancement, cost reduction, the optimization of designing and sizing, financial availability, etc. Thanks to this, decentralized rural electrification has recently experienced a change of scale characterized by new programmes with thousands of solar home systems and long maintenance periods. Many of these large programmes are being developed with limited success, as they have generally been based on assumptions that do not correspond to reality, compromising the economic return that allows long term activity. In this scenario a new challenge emerges, which approaches the sustainability of large programmes. It is argued that the main cause of unprofitability is the unexpected high cost of the operation and maintenance of the solar systems. In fact, the lack of a paradigm in decentralized rural services has led to many private companies to carry out decentralized electrification programmes blindly. Issues such as the operation and maintenance cost structure or the reliability of the solar home system components have still not been characterized. This situation does not allow optimized maintenance structure to be designed to assure the sustainability and profitability of the operation and maintenance service. This PhD thesis aims to respond to these needs. Several studies have been carried out based on a real and large photovoltaic rural electrification programme carried out in Morocco with more than 13,000 solar home systems. An in‐depth reliability assessment has been made from a 5‐year maintenance database with more than 80,000 maintenance inputs. The results have allowed us to establish the real reliability functions, the failure rate and the main time to failure of the main components of the system, reporting these findings for the first time in the field of rural electrification. Both in‐field experiments on the capacity degradation of batteries and power degradation of photovoltaic modules have been carried out. During the experiments both samples of batteries and modules were operating under real conditions integrated into the solar home systems of the Moroccan programme. In the case of the batteries, the results have enabled us to obtain a proposal of definition of death of batteries in rural electrification. A cost assessment of the Moroccan experience based on a 5‐year accounting database has been carried out to characterize the cost structure of the programme. The results have allowed the major costs of the photovoltaic electrification to be defined. The overall cost ratio per installed system has been calculated together with the necessary fees that users would have to pay to make the operation and maintenance affordable. Finally, a mathematical optimization model has been proposed to design maintenance structures based on the previous study results. The tool has been applied to the Moroccan programme with the aim of validating the model. v.

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(9) ACRONYMS AECID:. Agencia Españolda de Cooperación para el Desarrollo. AEG:. Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft. CC:. Charge Controller. CFL:. Compact Fluorescent Lamp. CM:. Corrective Maintenance. DOD:. Depth Of Discharge. EC:. European Communities. ECU:. European Currency Unit. EDP:. Energy Demonstration Programme. ESCO:. Energy Service Company. EVA:. Ethylene‐Vinyl‐Acetate. GEF:. Global Environmental Facility. HW:. Hardware. IEA:. International Energy Agency. IEC:. International Electrotechnical Commission. IES‐UPM:. Instituto de Energía Solar ‐ Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. LC:. Low power Consumption light lamps. LED:. Light‐Emitting Diode. LEDC:. Less Economically Developed Countries. MAD:. ISO code for the Moroccan currency (dirham). MDG:. Millennium Development Goals. MNRE:. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy of India. MPPT:. Maximum Power Point Tracker. MTTF:. Mean Time To Failure. NGO:. Non‐Governmental‐Organizations. O&M:. Operation and Maintenance. OEI:. Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos. ONEE:. Office National de l'Electricité et l'Eau (Morocco). OW:. Orgware. pdf:. probability density distribution. PERG:. Programme d'Electrification Rurale Globale (Morocco). PLANER:. Plan Nacional de Electrificación Rural (Spain). PM:. Preventive Maintenance. vii.

(10) PPER:. Programme Pilote d'Electrification Rurale (Morocco). ppp:. public‐private‐partnership. PV:. Photovoltaic. PVPS‐IEA:. Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme ‐ IEA. PVRE:. Photovoltaic Rural Electrification. PWM:. Pulse‐Width Modulation (charge controller). REA:. Rural Electrification Administration. REDP:. Renewable Energy Development Project. SE4ALL:. Sustainable Energy for All. SGA:. Société Générale Agricole. SHS:. Solar Home Systems. SLI:. Start‐Lighting‐Ignition (Battery). SOC:. State Of Charge. Solar‐PERG:. Photovoltaic PERG programme. Solar‐PERGISO: Solar‐PERG carried out by the private company ISOFOTON SW:. Software. UN:. United Nations. UNDP:. United Nations Development Programme. USAID:. United States Agency for International Development. UTSfSHS:. Universal Technical Standard for Solar Home Systems. VAT:. Value Added Tax. VRLA:. Valve‐Regulated Lead‐Acid (Battery). WB:. World Bank. Wp:. Watt peak. viii.

(11) SUMMARY. 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 2 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6. 2. THE MOROCCAN PV RURAL ELECTRIFICATION PROGRAMME .................................. 38 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6. 3. THE GLOBAL ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY ................................................................................... 3 THE ORIGINS OF RURAL ELECTRIFICATION .......................................................................... 10 REVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHOTOVOLTAIC RURAL ELECTRIFICATION .......... 17 OBJECTIVES OF THE THESIS ................................................................................................. 35 METHODOLOGY OF THE WORK........................................................................................... 35 THESIS STRUCTURE ............................................................................................................. 35. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 38 THE PERG PROGRAMME ..................................................................................................... 38 THE SOLAR‐PERG ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT AND FEATURES ................................................ 40 THE ISOFOTON‐PERG PROGRAMME ................................................................................... 43 SOME COMMENTS ABOUT THE SOLAR PERG DEVELOPMENT ............................................ 50 THE ISOFOTON‐PERG DATABASE ........................................................................................ 50. RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF SHS COMPONENTS .................................................... 54 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 54 RELIABILITY ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................... 54 ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS .................................................................................................. 60 APPLICATION EXAMPLE ...................................................................................................... 65 CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................... 66. 4 IN‐THE‐FIELD ASSESSMENT OF BATTERIES AND PV MODULE RELIABILITY IN THE PERG PROGRAMME ................................................................................................................. 70 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4. 5. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 70 IN‐FIELD BATTERY TESTING ................................................................................................. 71 IN‐THE‐FIELD PV‐MODULE TESTING.................................................................................... 81 CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................... 84. CHARACTERIZATION OF THE OPERATIONAL & MAINTENANCE COSTS...................... 88 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 88 COST ANALYSIS.................................................................................................................... 88 SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................... 94 INFLUENCE OF THE SHS SPATIAL DENSITY........................................................................... 96 APPLICATION EXAMPLE ...................................................................................................... 97 CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................... 99. 6 DESIGN OF DECENTRALIZED MAINTENANCE STRUCTURES IN PHOTOVOLTAIC RURAL ELECTRIFICATION ...........................................................................................................102. ix.

(12) 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5. 7. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 102 BASELINE DATA ................................................................................................................. 103 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................ 103 MODEL APPLICATION ........................................................................................................ 111 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................... 115. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH ..................................................................118 7.1 7.2. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................... 118 FUTURE LINES OF RESEARCH ............................................................................................. 121. PUBLICATIONS GENERATED DURING THIS PHD ..............................................................124 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..............................................................................................................128. x.

(13) CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.

(14) 1 INTRODUCTION. Beyond the reasons that justify the right of every human to have access to modern sources of energy, the importance of electricity as energy vector, from the first application of the late nineteenth century to today, lies in the fact that it is easy to transport and simple to operate. Nowadays there are still 1,300 million people deprived of electricity, 85% of them in remote rural areas where electrification encounters problems such as high economic investments, low profitability or difficulty of operation, among others. In these cases, decentralised electrification by means of solar home systems (SHS) has aimed to be a technical and cost‐effective solution for over 40 years in many countries of the world. Currently, large‐scale electrification programmes with thousand of SHSs are established in remote and impoverished regions, whose results, in terms of sustainability, are in doubt. These attempts at electrification are frequently based on assumptions, such as electricity consumption, device reliability, operating costs, rural spending habits, etc, which bear little resemblance to reality. The consequences are the long term economic instability of the programmes, the failure of private operators and the abandonment of SHSs, which has happened in many initiatives developed in recent decades. This work presents a study based on a real and large photovoltaic rural electrification (PVRE) programme, taking advantage of the excellent opportunity that the author took advantage of whilst, for five years, being part of the management team of the company that operated that programme, having full access to the detailed maintenance data, failure of the SHS components, unit costs, management structure, activity organization, etc, during that period. The study provides the chance, for the first time, to contrast the real data of decentralised electrification with the classic assumptions, by means of the SHS's reliability statistic research, the characterization of the actual costs in the operation and maintenance (O&M) phase and the study of the application of the results in the formulation of PVRE programmes. This chapter introduces the detailed historical evolution of rural electrification, in general and the photovoltaic rural technology, in particular, which nowadays has culminated in the implementation of large PVRE programmes. First, it focuses on the problem of access to electricity and discusses the difficulties that it faces. Then, a review of the rural electrification origins throughout the 20th century is presented to show that barriers and solutions at the beginning of rural electrification are similar to the current challenges. Finally, an historical review of photovoltaic rural technology evolution shows that the three dimensions that integrate it (hardware, software and orgware) have unequally evolved to the present day, which gives rise to a still non‐mature technology. The chapter concludes with the main objectives of the thesis, a brief explanation of the methodology of the work and the description of the document structure.. 2.

(15) Chapter 1: Introduction. 1.1 THE GLOBAL ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY 1.1.1. Current status: 1,300 million people without electricity. Nowadays, the lack of access to electricity affects to 1,300 million people worldwide, 20% of the world’s population. This figure, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2012 ‐ World Energy Outlook Report, [1] ‐ gives us an overall idea of a problem to be solved globally, similar to other issues such as hunger, access to clean water, sanitation, etc. According to the IEA, this figure has decreased since 1990, from 2,000 million people, to 1,300 million in 2010. Not only that, in just in 8 years (2002 ‐ 2010), it has been reduced from 1,623 million to 1,267, a gap of new 356 million people with access to electricity (more than the population of the United States of America). However, these figures are just estimations (as recognized by the IEA), since the lack of access to electricity is something specific to the marginal and rural areas of the less economically developed countries (LEDC), where the inaccuracy of the population census, also affected by the double and opposing effect of population growth and migration to urban areas, precludes any accurate estimations [2]. 1.1.2. The IEA expects that universal access to electricity will be achieved in part with Solar Home Systems. From the perspective of reducing the world population without access to electricity, in 2010 the United Nations (UN) launched the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative to "achieve universal energy access, improve energy efficiency, and increase the use of renewable energy" [3] (It must be remembered that the UN for many years did not include action on energy poverty in the Millennium Development Goals). The 2011 World Energy Outlook report [4] published by the IEA estimated the necessary investment for electricity universal access, between 2010 and 2030, at US$ 640 billion (this requirement is small when compared to overall energy‐related infrastructure investment, equivalent to around 3% of the total). The report suggests that 70% of the required infrastructure would consist of off‐grid systems: mini‐grids (65% of this share) and stand‐alone off‐grid solutions (the remaining 35%), that is, solar home systems (SHS), small hydro systems, and others (wind and biogas). We estimate that nowadays, the SHSs represent 95% of the stand alone system installed worldwide. So, the IEA foresees an investment of around US$ 150 billion for SHSs to reach universal access to electricity before 2030. If photovoltaic (PV) systems were sized to meet housing consumption between 250 and 500 kWh/year [5], the required SHS power would be 180 ‐ 365 watts peak (Wp). Taking into account a unit cost for the installed SHSs of between US$ 6 ‐ 8 /Wp1, it would correspond to installing more than 50 million SHSs, giving access to electricity to 250 million people. 1.1.3. Why the lack of electricity is a problem. Access to electricity is not considered a universal fundamental right of people [6]. However, there is a unanimous opinion that electrical supply is a priority factor which is urgent to resolve. Therefore, in the last decade there have been numerous initiatives to address the problem, such us the Global 1. It includes equipment, transportation, installation of the SHSs and 10% of overhead expenses.. 3.

(16) Environmental Facility ‐ GEF [7], the Millennium Development Goals [8] and the Sustainable Energy for ALL (SE4ALL) from the UN [3], "Luz para Todos" in Brazil [9], Power for all in India [10] or "Luces para aprender" from the Organization of Ibero‐American States (OEI) [11], among others. Apart from the extended consideration in Western culture that human enrichment as a society, in economic, social, political and cultural aspects, is necessarily linked to infrastructure development [12, 13], perhaps, the best arguments that justify the need for access to electricity are included in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). In this resolution, adopted by the UN in 2000, although there are no specific MDGs relating to energy, it has been recognized that MDGs cannot be met without affordable, accessible and reliable energy services (Table 1): Table 1: Importance of electrical access for achieving the MDGs. Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty. Goals 2 and 3: Achieve universal primary education and promote gender equality and empowerment of women Goals 4, 5 and 6: Reduce child and maternal mortality and reduce diseases. Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development. Access to modern electricity increases household incomes through economic development and reduces the burden of time‐consuming domestic labour. Electricity supply enables poor households to engage in activities that generate income by providing lighting that extends the working day and by powering machines that increase output. For poor people everywhere, access to electricity frees time for education; time that would otherwise be spent collecting traditional fuels, fetching water, processing food or in other physical work. Access to electricity contributes to the empowerment of women. Increasing access to energy brings major benefits for women and girls; in health, education, and productive activities.. Electricity helps improve health by powering equipment for pumping and treating water; it enable health clinics to refrigerate vaccines, operate and sterilize medical equipment, and provide lighting. It allows the use of modern tools of mass communication needed to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS and other preventable diseases. Access to electricity helps attract and retain health and social workers in rural areas by improving living conditions. Energy use and production affect in local, regional and global environments. The environmental damage and its harmful effects can be reduced by increasing energy efficiency, introducing modern technologies for energy production and using renewable energy. The World Summit for Sustainable Development called for partnerships between public entities, development agencies, civil society and the private sector to support sustainable development, including the delivery of affordable, reliable and environmentally sustainable energy services.. However, these arguments, usually very common in the literature, should be treated with caution, since, very often, the availability of electricity does not directly involve any development [14, 15]. 4.

(17) Chapter 1: Introduction. An example that refutes this attribution is the Moroccan Global Rural Electrification Programme (PERG in French acronym), which will be widely discussed in this work. This electrification programme focused on providing electricity mainly to housing and not to farmlands, which are the places where electrification could have some impact on the development of the local economy. The case of Tizi n'Ait Amer, a small village of just 700 inhabitants in the south of Morocco, is illustrative. It got access to electricity 10 years ago and every dwelling is connected to the grid. However, no new economical activities have been developed since the electrification of the village. The only hope of carrying out new activities has been the extension of agricultural lands, which has recently become possible thanks to the installation of a photovoltaic water pumping system to irrigate the new crops, as the wells are 400 meters from the village and the grid does not reach it2. This example shows that giving access to dwellings is not enough for economical development. Rural electrification must be more ambitious if new economical activities are to be implemented. From a different point of view, most modern societies are economically based on the so‐called "consumer economy", thus it is not surprising that private corporations, financial institutions and public administrations are interested in the extension of the economy to the rural population, focusing in the fact that access to electricity contributes to the acceleration of that process (consider, however, the existing criticisms of the dominant current model of economic growth, but this subject is far from the arguments addressed in this thesis). Beyond corporate or market interests, the extension of the access to electricity is currently in the hands of the people themselves, that even knowing about the electricity, they still live without it and therefore they demand it. To a greater or lesser extent, modern standards of living have spread to the most remote areas of the planet, and so electric lighting, television and mobile phones are currently perceived as basic needs in the rural areas of impoverished countries. The introduction of these everyday uses requires the availability of electricity. It can be said that after more than a century of electrification, the current demand for electricity is global. 1.1.4. Blocking factors. Despite the efforts made to enhance the conditions for people in rural environments, the fact is that the access to electricity rates are still very low in some regions of the planet (Sub‐Saharan Africa and South Asia constitutes 95% of the world population without access to electricity). The evolution of the rate of access to electricity is affected by several factors: a) Positive factors that increase the electrification rate: ‐. Migration from rural to urban areas. ‐. Rural electrification. ‐. Maturity, quality and cost reduction of new technologies. b) Negative factors that reduce the electrification rate: ‐. The high birth rates in rural areas of impoverished countries. 2. Own sources. The PV pump installed in Tizi n'Ait Amer belongs to a project financed by the Spanish International Cooperation (AECID) and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). 5.

(18) ‐. The increased costs of conventional technologies. These factors, which could be quantified, depend on other more unpredictable and difficult weighting factors, such as political will, armed conflict, famine, natural disasters, etc. Considering the last 3 decades (1980 ‐ 2010), an analysis of the factors involved in global access to electricity could be carried out just by assigning an indicator to each factor (Table 2). Table 2: Factors that quantitatively affect the evolution of global access to electricity. Factor Migration from rural to urban areas Birth Rural electrification programmes Maturity and reduced costs of new technologies Increased costs of conventional technologies. Indicator Rural population (nº of people living in rural environment). 1980 2,675,822,000 (61% of the population). World population (nº of people). 4,413,536,000. People without access to electricity Photovoltaic systems costs ($/Wp of the photovoltaic module) Crude oil prices (US$/ barrel) [16]. 2,000,000,000 (45%). 2010 3,320,679,000 (48% of the population) 6,861,918,000 (increased by 55%) 1,300,000,000 (20%). $12. $0.8 (93% reduction). Jan. 1970 (Before 1970s oil crisis) US$ 21.00. July 2010 US$ 82.25. 1.1.4.1 The increase in the rural population On the one hand, in spite of the strong migration impact towards the cities (in 2007 there was the historical phenomenon that, for the first time, the world population changed from mainly rural to urban), the high global birth rate has meant that in 3 decades the world’s rural population has increased by 25% (more than 600 million people). On the other hand, although the rural electrification programmes have contributed to increasing the rate of access to electricity, it is not known precisely what was this rate in the 1980s, but it can be estimated that the overall number of people without access to electricity remained constant during that decade at 2,000 million, which means 45% of the population [17]. If the figure was reduced to 1,300 million in 2010, it means that the rate of access to electricity is still higher than the growth rate of the rural population, which is a very encouraging fact (see Figure 1) on the evolution of the global access to electricity, especially in Asia, where the ratio of people without power is declining rapidly (China gave access to electricity to more than 700 million people between 1980 and 2000 [18], and the country's electrification rate currently exceeds 99% [5]). Sub‐ Saharan Africa, however, remains as the only region of the world where the number of people without access to electricity is increasing.. 6.

(19) Million of people. Chapter 1: Introduction 8,000. World Rural World Without electricity access. 7,000. 7,125. 6,000 5,000 4,000. 3,336. 3,000 2,000. 1,285. 1,000 ‐ 1950. 1960. 1970. 1980. 1990. 2000. 2010. 2020. Figure 1: Global evolution of population, rural population and lack of access to electricity until 2013. World Bank [19]. 1.1.4.2 Conventional electrification is becoming more expensive The current high costs of conventional rural electrification systems are affected, among other factors, by the increased prices of fossil fuels. For example, in US, the cost of electricity for residential use has doubled in three decades. In Europe, between 2002 and 2013, the cost of electricity for households has gone up by 61%.3 Among the less electrified regions of the world, Sub‐Saharan Africa has the most expensive electricity tariff in the world, on average between US$ 0.13 ‐ $0.14/kWh (in comparison, electricity tariffs in Latin America, Eastern Europe and East Asia are around US$ 0.08/kWh.) [5], which lie well below the true cost of production, which on average is US$ 0.18/kWh, preventing any return in capital, thus threatening the long‐term sustainability of the utilities in the region [20]. If, in addition, we consider the investment needed to provide access to electricity to rural communities, it should be noted that the infrastructure costs for conventional electrification (extensions of electricity grids mainly through the medium and low voltage lines) has increased considerably. These lines use raw materials such as iron and copper, whose market prices have increased 2 and 5 fold respectively from 1980 to now [21]. The average cost of a medium voltage line is around €6,000/km (case of 11 kV; cost of medium voltage transformers or operation and maintenance not included [22, 23, 24, 25]) and its impact on the energy costs can be estimated at €2.5c/kWh/km [26]. At the same time, during the last 40 years, the silicon flat‐plate photovoltaic industry (that represents more than 90% of the global photovoltaic market) has reduced its costs by 93%, so in the sunniest countries, such as the Mediterranean area, or most of the African continent, it is now. 3. Note, however, that the integration of renewable energy sources into the European energy mix has also affected the increase in tariffs.. 7.

(20) feasible to produce solar electricity at a cost around4 €8c/kWh , which could lead to the possibility of a medium term change of paradigm. On other matters, from 1980 to 2010, electrical power consumption in the world has increased by more than 150%, at a rate nearly 5% per year (Figure 2). However, the human population has grown at a rate of 1.8% per year, which indicates that electricity consumption per capita has increased almost 3 fold in 30 years. Although the development of the industry carries a lot of weight in these results, it is also obvious that home electricity consumption is growing. This fact suggests that providing access to electricity leads not only to an increase in the power required to meet the new connections, but also that this power needs to be gradually increased according to trends in household consumption.. 109 kWh 25,000. Total Electricity Net Consumption (Billion Kilowatthours) Electricity Distribution Losses (Billion Kilowatthours) Total Electricity Installed Capacity (Million Kilowatts). 106 kW 6,000 5,000. 20,000. 4,000. 15,000. 3,000 10,000. 2,000. 5,000 0 1975. 1,000. 1980. 1985. 1990. 1995. 2000. 2005. 2010. 0 2015. Figure 2: Evolution of the World’s electricity capacity, generation, consumption and losses [27]. Within the great figures of the world electricity generation, it is worth mentioning the importance of the distribution energy losses (see Figure 2), which represent 8 ‐ 9% of the electricity generated every year worldwide. This means annual losses of 1,800∙106 MWh, enough to supply electricity to a country of more than 300 million inhabitants with the European standard consumption of electricity (5.4 MWh/person/year [28]). Not only that. Taking into account the minimum electrical consumption to guarantee basic life conditions (1 MWh/person/year [29]), the figure would become 1,800 million people; and considering the average consumption per capita in Africa (0.5 MWh/person/year), this figure would rise to 3,600 million people, almost 3 times the world’s population without access to electricity.. 4. It concerns large photovoltaic (PV) power plants. Taking into account a power degradation rate of 1%/year for PV modules and a lifetime of 25 years, 1 kWp PV power could produce around 44,500 kWh for 25 years (solar radiation = 5.5 kWh/m2/day). At current PV power plant investment prices (€1.5 /Wp), a performance ratio PR = 0.75 and O&M costs corresponding to 3% yearly of the investment cost, the produced solar energy cost would be €7.8c/kWh.. 8.

(21) Chapter 1: Introduction. 1.1.4.3. Political and social factors. In the current global energy scenario, with a declining growth rate of the world’s rural population and viable alternatives to conventional electrification, we can estimate that technical and economical aspects are not the only cause impeding access to electricity. The development of rural electrification also depends on other factors such as political will, social acceptance, subsidies and agricultural development policies, among others. It is socially accepted that renewable energies, especially photovoltaic technology, are "expensive" and have low reliability compared to conventional technologies, so they would require a great deal of investment for implementation and the power supply could not be guaranteed. But, in 2013 subsidies to conventional energies, such as petroleum, reached US$550 billion all around the world, 4 times higher than the amount dedicated to renewable energies [30]; or, in the same context, as regards rural electrification, the World Bank (WB) argues that subsidies for grid electrification are significantly greater than those for off‐grid electrification [31]. As regards rural development in impoverished countries, the lack of structure in the agricultural sector also contributes to impeding access to electricity, since the agricultural policies require investments in infrastructures to be made in the agricultural economy and dignify the peasant's lives. Thus, it is very unlikely that a country without agricultural policies will be able to allow the rural population to get access to electricity. As will be set out below, rural electrification in almost all Western countries in the mid‐20st century was developed in parallel with agriculture with the aim of modernizing the countryside and increasing agricultural production ratios. Finally, it must be taken into account that rural electrification especially addresses a particular part of society, the peasants. They have been historically constituted as an independent economy characterized by the fact that the peasantry has always supported itself. The peasant community is the most aware class with regard to its economy, which determines the decisions that they take daily. The difference between a peasant and other society member is that the former knows perfectly what he obtains from his work: he produces what he needs to live and the rest of the production can be a surplus value when sold on. On the other hand, a worker from the "standard" society never knows the real value of the product of his work. Thus, is important to realize that giving access to electricity to rural people means an incursion from the macro‐economy into the peasant economy, with all the difficulties involved (resistance to change). For example, rural inhabitants from countries like Morocco are not familiarized with public services such as electricity, and it is difficult to admit concepts like the payment of monthly fees or the long term contracts, or contractual rights and obligations. To better understand the phenomenon of contrast in the development of rural electrification, which prevails both in the effort to electrify and the problem of electrification, there is nothing better than referring back at the origins of rural electrification in the Western countries carried out during the twentieth century.. 9.

(22) 1.2 THE ORIGINS OF RURAL ELECTRIFICATION 1.2.1. The appeal of electricity. 1.2.1.1 Start of the marketing of electricity. The 1881 Paris Exposition Electricity and its applications have fascinated humans since the beginning of the industry over 130 years ago. When today a peasant family without access to electricity in an impoverished country finally gets access to it, the ability to marvel at the optimum quality of electric lighting in addition to the possibility of using appliances like TV or mobile phone must be very similar to that experienced by our ancestors in the late nineteenth century. It may be argued that the commercial inception of the electrical industry began with the International Exhibition in Paris in 1881, exclusively dedicated to electricity, that brought together many of the inventors and industrialists from the emerging sector at the time to exhibit their creations and show them to the world (Figure 3). It was the closest thing to what we now understand as an industrial exhibition. It was attended by over 600,000 visitors and had over a thousand exhibitors (including Thomas A. Edison, Joseph W. Swan, Zénobe T. Gramme, A. Graham Bell, William Thomson, etc), 19 of whom came from Spain [32].. Figure 3: Overview of the International Exhibition of Electricity, Paris 1881 (appeared in Nature, 1881 second quarter). Inside the Palais de l'Industrie, which then occupied the place where now stands the Grand Palais des Champs Elisées, the latter built to host 1900 Universal Exhibition, all kinds of inventions for electric power generation, transmission and application were exhibited, from a lighthouse, boats and even an airship driven by electric motors, submarine cables, telegraphy apparatuses, electrochemical batteries, electric stoves, large magneto‐electric machines, microphones, trams, etc.. 10.

(23) Chapter 1: Introduction. But surely, there were two applications which caused more excitement: the phone and lighting. On the latter, the Spanish magazine "La Ilustración Española y Americana" published in reference to the Paris Exhibition the following [32]: "On the bottom left, there are all the known generators: steam, gas, or by means of batteries. Further, a series of powerful gas engines or steam, which set in motion the dynamo‐magneto‐ electric machines of Gramme, Lontin, Siemens and Meritens, which send torrents of electricity to the lamps of various systems, which shine splendidly inside the Palace with the most brilliant clarity that human industry has ever produced and with the astonished gaze of man has ever seen." Thus, electric lighting was the first application of electricity that amazed humanity and became the engine of development and expansion, thus making other means of artificial lighting practically inconceivable. 1.2.1.2. First public supply of electricity in a rural setting: Godalming 1881. Coinciding with the 1881 Exhibition in Paris, and one year before that the famous electric power plant of Pearl Street in New York (September, 1882) was inaugurated, it took place in September, 1881 in Godalming (England) the first experience in the rural supply of electricity on record, built to provide street lighting for the town, and replacing the existing gas‐lighting system. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, electricity was perceived by society within the realm of the "scientific". The fact that it was applied in a small town of only 2,000 inhabitants caused a huge interest around the country. The power generation genius system and the welcome given by not only the local and surrounding population, but also by the press, because of the good quality of lighting [33], started the paradigm of what electricity would mean for humanity throughout the coming century. However, the enormous expectation of the pioneering system and its initial success had to deal with its technical immaturity and despite the enthusiasm of its promoters, the private company of electricians Calder & Barnet, eventually abandoned its contract with the Town of Godalming, which in turn was taken over by Siemens and after numerous problems, causing continuous and repeated outages, Godalming went back to gas lighting only 2 and a half years after the start of the new experience. Electricity would come back to Godalming in 1904 and this time would be forever. 1.2.1.3. The urban development of the electrification. Electrification applied to lighting was really confined to the big cities, whose beginnings were marked by the fierce competition against gas‐lighting, but the rapid popularity of electricity and its great reception brought about its rapid expansion. The first urban experiences of using electricity did not go beyond being mere exhibitions. For example the lighting of Puerta del Sol in Madrid in 1875, or in 1878, to mark the engagement between King Alfonso XII and his cousin Maria de las Mercedes (who was only 17 years old. She would die of typhus just five months later, giving rise to the famous legend of the love between them and the traditional songs that have survived in popular heritage), or other more extravagant events, like the first night bullfight with not very good results in 1879, which "La Ilustración Española y Americana" would outline [32]: "If the shadows of our grandparents hold bullfight functions in the Otherworld, they should be very similar, because what we saw was a show of silhouettes." 11.

(24) In the late nineteenth century, European cities were equipped with a gas lighting service operated by private companies. The pioneers of electrification were also private companies, and after electricity superseded gas lighting, many gas companies turned to electricity. Thus emerged a network of companies that obtained concessions (from municipalities) to illuminate streets or even whole neighbourhoods. The companies employed steam engines and alternators installed wherever they could (rented basements, cellars, etc) to power the street lights. Very soon, theatres, cafes, public buildings, and later dwellings, would also be electrified which led to complex commercial competition between the numerous electric companies (Figure 4), generating a price war in order to win customers. Electrical distribution was born, therefore, as a totally private and decentralized system.. Figure 4: Electricity sales advertisement appeared in an early 20th century newspaper from Barcelona. 1.2.1.4 The world's largest industry emerges: the electrical industry The development of the electricity supply industry was possible thanks to private equity, closely linked to the European industry. In the case of Spain, the first electric company, also founded in 1881, was the "Sociedad Española de Electricidad", with a company's share capital of 20 million pesetas, and created by D. Tomás Dalmau, who owned an "optics and physics" shop in Barcelona, and who had previously introduced the Gramme machine in Spain in 1873, which subsequently obtained a license for manufacturing. The "Sociedad Española de Electricidad" installed a multitude of electrical supply equipment for public and interior lighting in many cities in Spain, especially Barcelona and its surroundings, even overseas (Cuba and the Philippines) and navy warships. The representative of the company in Madrid, who was also a partner, the engineer and inventor Artilleryman Colonel Isodoro Cabanyes, had already equipped his atelier with electricity in 1881 for lighting and motive power. He was responsible for many of the first electrical project demonstration in Spain. It is worth mentioning that Cabanyes would work some years later on the use of solar energy for decentralized rural applications in the field of agricultural irrigation, firstly through a "solar reflector system" (Figure 5) and afterward with the "solar air engine" [34]. The company was taken over in 1894 by the German company Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft (AEG) who founded the "Compañía Barcelonesa de Electricidad" in the same year [35, 36, 37, 38, 39].. 12.

(25) Chapter 1: Introduction. Figure 5: Cabanyes's solar reflector. It appeared in 1890 in the magazine La Gaceta Industrial [34]. Electricity generation, initially produced by means of the steam engine, made the leap to hydroelectricity, which meant a reduction in the costs of production and consequently electricity tariffs, initiating the development of large electrical distribution networks. This new situation led to the need to make major investments in the construction of dams and reservoirs, artificial waterfalls, high voltage distribution lines, etc. However, the enormous investments necessary could not be covered by the limited national electric companies, nor even the public administration, so since the very early days, the electricity industry in Spain, which in the 1930s was the most important in terms of investment, exceeding that of the rail and mining industries, needed the intervention of international investment holdings to meet the costs of the rapid development of the electricity sector. In the early 1930s all European utilities were already in the hands of roughly 20 companies, thus shaping what would later become the paradigm of centralized electrification [36]. 1.2.2. The beginnings of rural electrification and its problem of profitability. After the introduction of use of electricity in the cities, the Spanish countryside showed little interest in the new technology. However, the public administration considered electricity as the panacea for the 3 major rural problems of the Spanish post‐civil war years [40]: unemployment, poverty and the consequent rural exodus. However, access to electricity in the countryside had to face two major obstacles: "the enormous cost of setting up the transmission and distribution of electricity" and the lack of interest of the rural population towards technological innovation. The first problem was solved through subsidies and as regards the latter, Luis González Abela in his book "La Electrificación Rural, Problema Nacional " published in 1942 described the problem in thus [40]: "... there is only one way to overcome it, which is a very active advertising through pamphlets, daily and technical press, radio, cinema and whatever means possible, which will highlight the transcendental benefits that would result giving access to electricity to our honoured peasants, because there is no reason for them to be second‐class citizens and because they did not commit any offense in having born in the countryside ... ". 13.

(26) An example of these transcendental benefits was cited in the Congress of Rural Electrification in 1948, held at the School of Industrial Engineers of Madrid [41], in which the importance of using radio receivers for the Spanish peasant was mentioned: "... [the peasant] isolation is broken in this way. He belongs to the great human family. He can cultivate his Spirit, increase his knowledge, participate in the national life and enjoy the artistic beauties of music whenever he wants. Not enough can ever be said about the benefits of radio in the life of an isolated peasant. " Much less documented than urban electrification, rural electrification was carried out in parallel with the urban, but with a different approach and significant limitations. On the one hand, the existence of small waterfalls that were used in the flour mills, saw mills, foundries, etc, were exploited by means of small generators (dynamos) to provide electricity to small towns. Again, the origin of the electrification system, like the urban one, was absolutely decentralized. From that mentioned at the 1948 Congress of Rural Electrification, the following is extracted [41]: "The typical electric mill that is used in many towns and all of its electrical industry is known; it is a completely logical solution, which adequately meets the needs of these people. It is enough to have a small water flow, provided by any ravine that goes to a canal that carries the water to a small pond. At the foot of it, a turbine with a dynamo and engine is installed, achieving a power of 5 to 20 CV; the latter serves to supply electricity to several towns. During the daytime it works as mill, and at night, the dynamo supplies lighting to the town. This is the reality for a large area of the country, and as long as the Spanish countryside does not change its habits, what nowadays seems to be difficult, the National power distribution networks and the rural electrification will be superfluous." They were small companies including municipalities and agricultural cooperatives which were commissioned in the early decades to deal with these matters. The technical and productive limitations of the electrical rural generators, the distribution losses (voltage drops) and the gradual increase in loads (users added more lighting points, or appliances every year), caused the electric service to be of very poor quality, with frequent power outages and failures of the generator or even in the distribution network. From the aforementioned 1948 publication, the following was cited [41]: "... the technical solution for creating small local power plants or, at most, at a regional level, installed in waterfalls that are built ad hoc or even using already existing mill and sawmill facilities, is usually not effective, unless, even within modesty of the installations, their energy power far exceeds that required for the loads." At the time, the notion of critical mass of users that would allow to a company to manage an electrical network with an economic return was already mentioned [41]: "... the towns where electrical lighting has not yet arrived, not only will not give profits but losses, even if the facilities were freely outsourced to the nearest distributor, as the expected revenue would be 75‐100 pesetas per month on average at current tariffs, because towns have between 15 and 40 neighbours, most of them with poor access, and therefore the operation of electrical services is very expensive." "The solution must be sought permitting the rural distributors to apply an adapted tariff throughout its region. In this way, while tariffs remain moderate for the entire electricity rates, the distributors can increase it to get the real rural electrification in the area that they. 14.

(27) Chapter 1: Introduction. manage. So these new rates shall be applied to the rural market in which villages with up to 2,000 subscribers must be included. " Another singularity of the rural electrification, which directly affects the problem of the profitability should also be noted: the collection of the user fees. Given that the peasant and his family spend most of the daylight hours in agricultural activities, it is most likely that collectors, when they visit their customers will not find anyone at home, so the already high cost of moving around remote regions is increased as they have to return repeatedly. In this regard, another extract from the 1948 Congress is shown [41]: "Collection of receipts.‐ currently, they are charged at home, which is very expensive because the collector does not always find all the neighbours at home, so he is bound to make several trips, and very likely he may not be able to complete the collection." As a result of this historical evidence, it can be argued that some of the problems that rural electrification had to face in the first half of the twentieth century were based on the lack of profitability for the utilities, due to the high costs of infrastructure (network extensions), no return on investment (very low consumption of electricity) and insurmountable operation and maintenance tasks (remote and dispersed customers and difficulty in managing users' fee collection). As will be seen below, these problems have remained to date. 1.2.3. Rural electrification to modernize agriculture. In 1932, during the Second Spanish Republic, the Instituto de Ingenieros Civiles (now known as the Instituto de la Ingeniería de España [42]), organized a series of conferences on rural electrification dedicated to electrical energy applied to agriculture, where in a somewhat visionary way it addressed the tilling of the land by means of electric machines, in addition to the "electroculture of crops" (direct application of electricity to the crops to influence their development). The focus of the conferences was the French experience, which had already almost 40,000 electrified towns and used the "electric‐tiller" (Figure 6) for agricultural work in France, its Protectorates and Colonies [43]: "... the Gas Lebón Company, in Algeria [...] had decided to give a subsidy of 300,000 Francs to private farmers and agricultural cooperatives that purchased electric‐tillers of more than 100 H.P.". Figure 6: Electric‐tiller with cable winch, owned by the Société Générale Agricole (SGA). Photo from [43]. 15.

(28) It is known that later, during the second half of the twentieth century, the engine of development of rural electrification were policies focused on agricultural modernization, carried out in the European post‐war as a means of activating the European economy. "... to turn electrification into a profitable activity, it must cover electric‐tilling, harvesting, threshing and other available operations using electric motors ..." [41] Thus, the idea was to extend the grids, at the time fed by large hydraulic and thermal power plants, toward farms with the aim of increasing crop yields through the use of new electrical equipment. However, the private companies, which had flourished within urban electrification, did not perceive the same business opportunity in rural electrification that had it had seen in the cities, for the aforementioned reasons. 1.2.4. Public subsidies for rural electrification. Then government intervention was required through incentives for both the utilities and the rural users in order to make the rural electrification attractive to them. In most Western countries rural electrification was achieved through grants and loans provided to the electricity companies to ensure a return on the investment, and carrying out awareness campaigns addressed to the rural population to ensure a minimal electric power consumption. For example, the US created a rural electrification agency (the Rural Electrification Administration ‐ REA) with the aim of funding the utilities that were electrifying the rural areas [44, 45]. In the 1930s, the US administration launched a promotional campaign aimed at encouraging the peasants to use electricity (at the time they were reluctant to pay for an electric service that never had needed before) for different domestic appliances and machinery for agriculture and livestock farm work (Figure 7).. Figure 7: Two of the advertisements that the REA agency used for electrification promotion in the 1930s to increase awareness among the rural population on the benefits of electricity.. 16.

(29) Chapter 1: Introduction. Thanks to this campaign, an electrification rate close to 100% in US was attempted in few decades, which contributed to popularizing the use of domestic appliances, such as television, oven, iron, bread machine, vacuum cleaner, etc, which would later be exported all over the world. It had the same impact on agriculture, and the consequent employment of sophisticated electrical power tools. 1.2.4.1 Public subsidies: The Spanish PLANER In 1974, in Spain, more than 900,000 rural people still lacked access to the public service electricity lines (over 6% of rural population). Giving access to electricity to that remote population meant a huge investment and negative profitability because of the wide dispersion and low purchasing power of the population. The 1973 National Electrical census indicated that while the density of subscribers in urban areas was 116.68 per km2, in rural areas it was 11.42 per km2. Moreover, while the mean urban consumption was 6,244 kWh/year (per dwelling), the rural rate was 885 kWh/year, i.e. the rural household consumption was 7 times lower than the urban one and the dispersion of the dwellings was 10 times higher, what meant that the rural electrification costs were 70 times higher than the urban costs [46]. Although most of the electricity companies in Spain were private, the Spanish government launched the rural electrification plan, PLANER in Spanish acronym, [47] with the aim of providing access to the non‐electrified rural population, upgrading rural power grids and contributing to the increase in agricultural and rural electricity consumption. The programme was carried out between 1976 and 1989. Just from 1982 to 1989 [48], the amount of these subsidies reached 32 billion pesetas (more than €700 million at current rates [49]). In parallel to the modernization and extension of the conventional power grids,the first experiences in decentralized electrification was carried out in the 1980s by means of renewable energies, promoted by the National Institute for Reform and Development (IRYDA in Spanish acronym) within the PLANER programme. Around 3 million ECU (European Currency Unit) were dedicated between 1982 and 1985 (€4.6 million at current rates, applying inflation rate) to install more than 2,200 photovoltaic systems [50] in dwellings from decentralized areas.. 1.3 REVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHOTOVOLTAIC RURAL ELECTRIFICATION 1.3.1. Introduction. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the rising cost of coal led to the exploration of other alternatives to replace the coal in industrial applications where thermal processes intervene. That was how the French professor M. Augustin Mouchot developed his solar thermal system, later perfected by the engineer Frank Shuman in US in the early twentieth century [51] (see Figure 8). After the First World War, oil prices dropped dramatically, putting an end to the new global energy paradigm based on this fossil fuel while technological initiatives based on solar energy were abandoned.. 17.

(30) Figure 8: Left: 1878 Universal exhibition in Paris. First parabolic trough solar collector developed by Mouchot in 1866; right: First solar‐generating plant set up in 1913 in Egypt at Maadi by Frank Shuman. The use of solar energy was absolutely forgotten for 6 decades until the 1970s, when the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 shook the entire energy sector. Then the emerging photovoltaic technology, at the time restricted to aerospace since in the 50s, Bell laboratories in US developed the first photovoltaic cells, making the jump to terrestrial applications. This coincided with the first steps in the manufacture of silicon cells at a much lower cost than existed to date (in 1971, the price of silicon photovoltaic cells for the aerospace industry was $100/Wp [51]). Since then, the use of photovoltaics was conceived as a possible solution to electrification in remote areas. On the one hand, the solar resource is available, to a greater or lesser extent, everywhere in the World and on the other hand, the photovoltaic module is an element of high reliability and long life, which makes it ideal for use in isolated areas. Despite these two great qualities, there have been other factors that have played against the supposed "idealism" of the photovoltaic technology, such as high costs or low reliability of the other system components. These negative factors have been evolving during the 40 years of PV history thanks to the efforts of industry, researchers, installers and especially the users, who throughout the world have been the great laboratory of the decentralized PV electrification. 1.3.2. The Solar Home System in Photovoltaic Rural Electrification. Although the global PV market is currently shared by around 99% dedicated to the grid‐connection and only 1% (see Figure 9) to off‐grid applications, the use of PV technology in stand‐alone systems was, until 2000, the most extended application, mainly to provide electricity (lighting and small appliances) to rural homes through the so‐called solar home systems (SHS). The PV rural electrification is currently growing annually at a rate greater than 20% [52]. For example, the off‐ grid PV systems power installed in 2013 may have been more5 than 600 MW (with 500 MW installed in China alone) [53].. 5. The author have not found any source reporting reliable data about global off‐grid PV markets. 18.

(31) Chapter 1: Introduction. % Grid‐Connected. % Off‐Grid. Cumuled GWp GWp 160. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%. 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 2013. 2012. 2011. 2010. 2009. 2008. 2007. 2006. 2005. 2004. 2003. 2002. 2001. 2000. 1999. 1998. 1997. 0. Figure 9: Evolution of the off‐grid and grid‐connected global market. The worldwide cumulated PV installed power at the end of 2014 was 177 GWp. The solar home system has been the most used concept for mass electrification of houses in remote areas, versus the centralized PV systems (pure or hybrid power‐plants) or commonly so‐ called mini‐grids (Figure 10).. Figure 10: Left: Village electrified by SHSs; Right: PV off‐grid power plant (both in Morocco). The idea in favour of SHS argues that PV users invariably consume more electricity when they are not personally responsible for the system. This concern is linked to the capacity and size of the systems, to which the operation and maintenance factor could be added. The management of collective structures (need of local organizations, agreements, etc) seems to be more difficult than individual systems. However, SHS has also been imposed versus the mini‐grids for the following reasons:. 19.

(32)   . Standardization. The same design can be used in different homes or applications of similar ranks, which makes it easier for engineers, developers and installers; Geographical spread. SHS can be applied in both dense and sparse populations. Mini‐grids are justified only in geographically dense villages; Local availability of spare parts. SHS components are more standardized than those of mini‐ grid power plants, so it is easier to find spare parts locally in countries where PVRE is developed, such as electrochemical batteries, regulators or light bulbs adapted to the SHSs.. An SHS is typically made up of (Figure 11) a small PV generator (35 – 100 Wp), a charge controller, an electrochemical lead‐acid battery, several lamps and DC plugs to connect low loads, such as TVs, radios or mobile phone chargers. These systems are usually set up to a 12 Vdc output [54].. Figure 11: Left: Solar Home System electric scheme, right: PV module of the SHS on the dwelling roof. Even though photovoltaic technology applied to rural electrification has reached a solid maturity after 40 years of development, it still faces several problems, some of which are dealt with in this thesis. These problems involve not only the body of the technology itself, the SHS (what we are going to call hardware), but they mainly affect the management of decentralized services in rural electrification (known as orgware). To understand this issue we consider the two approaches presented below: 1.3.3. SHS: electrification system or domestic appliance. Taking into account the millions of SHSs that are installed in the world, it can be said that they consist of a standardized assembly of basic components (generator, charge controller, battery and loads). The user, in accordance with his economic resources, can purchase an SHS, and even install it himself in exchange for an equipment warranty. This is something very similar to buying a domestic appliance. To refer to an SHS as an electrification facility, similar to the conventional power grid, it must satisfy certain requirements, which make it equivalent to the electric power grid. The electrical service from the conventional power grids is managed by large companies that ensure the supply through a strong system of generation, transmission, distribution and O&M. The resources of these companies range from sophisticated media and control management to departments with specialized technical staff, mobility and transport capabilities, intervention. 20.

(33) Chapter 1: Introduction. protocols, etc. A similar deployment of resources is used for commercial issues, for example to ensure the collection of fees to end users by means of precise energy meters, switches to which only the companies can access, direct debit payments, billing departments, etc. In PVRE, it is difficult to obtain these sophisticated, large and effective management tools, perhaps due to the limited size of most of the PVRE programs, when compared with the grid, which does not apparently justify the necessary investment. While, in general, some PVRE programs demonstrate meticulous care in terms of the quality of the devices, they pay little attention to the management mechanisms that must ensure the operation and maintenance of the SHSs. So it can guarantee the quality of the PV system but not its sustainability. As a response to this problem, many electrification experiences have considered PVRE as something further from a service notion and closer to a domestic appliance. Thus, the figure of the service manager is replaced by the figure of the sales and guarantee manager. This model is a copy of the common domestic appliance market, which has the peculiarity that it has been institutionalized within the rural electrification field. As an example for purposes of illustration, PVRE can be compared to bicycle hire services that exist in many European cities. The purpose of this service is to provide mobility to citizens by means of bicycles. The bikes are apparently similar to those that we have at home, but they have certain special features, such as the automatic identification codes for tracking, parking anchorage devices, etc, which make them different and adapted to a management system. The user rides the bike just like a normal one, but in parallel to a registration system, subscriptions, card payments, etc. Behind it there is a complex (and usually expensive) management system that allows the concessionaire to carry out the O&M of bicycles and renting facilities, and to collect the leasing charges with guarantees (obviously the correct use of bicycles and the collection of fees is not left to the good faith of users). To date it has been usual in PVRE for, even in programmes configured as electric service, the SHS to be set up in a similar way to the bicycle that we have at home, in accordance with the aforementioned example. Thus, the O&M managers of these systems do not have any tool to manage the service offered to their customers and there is no choice but to trust in the honesty of thousands of SHS's users. The result of this fact is the well‐known dilemma about whether an SHS is a domestic appliance or, on the other hand, an electrification system comparable to the conventional one [55]. If the tendency is to achieve the universality of the access to electricity rights, the SHS cannot be a simple appliance purchased by the user from any dealer. If the SHS is a real electric supply system, its set up cannot be simplified to the minimum required components, and in the same way as the public service of bicycle renting, it will need hardware (the SHS) adapted to the management system (orgware) to provide the necessary tools to administrate the O&M and allow the user to benefit from a service with the same guarantees given by conventional electrification. 1.3.4. PVRE as technological system. As regards the photovoltaic rural technology, understood as a system [56], from a holistic point of view it consists of three dimensions (Figure 12):. 21.

(34) The hardware (HW), that refers to the system material body: the SHS, its components, quality, lifetime, reliability, cost, etc. The software (SW) is about the use of the system by the user: the consumption, the time of use of each appliance, the signals of the charge controller and reaction of the user, etc. The orgware (OW) is the organization model of the rural electrification programme, which provides the electricity service to the dwellings. In this regard it is taken into account on the one hand, whether the programme is developed through subsidies, credits, cash sales or a fee for service, among others. On the other hand, the orgware dimension deals with programme management, from marketing and installation of the SHSs, to the "after sales" service and the operation and maintenance. SOFTWARE HARDWARE •SHS components •Quality •Prices •Reliability •Installation. •SHS interface •User manual. •Datalogger •Monitoring •O&M management •Prepayment system and costs •Technical standard •Spare parts. •User SHS know‐how •Consumption. •Enquiries •User skills •Fee payment •O&M fees •Maintenance service. •Financement model (subsidies, credits, cash sales, fee for service, etc) •Normes, tenders, engineering •ESCO: marketing, installation, O&M, fee collection •Internal skills and training •Management structure ORGWARE Figure 12: Hardware, software and orgware interactions in the photovoltaic rural technology system. This scheme, proposed and analyzed for technological systems by the Ukrainian Gennady M. Dobrov [57] in the late 1970s, has certain peculiarities concerning the 3‐dimension interaction. One of them is that, traditionally in technical innovation, more attention has been paid (and more resources dedicated) to the HW and SW than the OW. This negatively affects the technological system’s sustainability. The orgware, defined by Dobrov as "a set of organizational arrangements specially designed and integrated using human, institutional and technical factors to support the appropriate interaction of the technology and the external systems", plays a key role in photovoltaic rural technology, which has been underestimated throughout PVRE history and currently still suffers significant deficiencies. The element that perhaps has evolved most in the PV rural system has been the hardware, both in the quality of the SHS devices, and adaptation of international standards, and recently, in the dramatic reduction in market cost.. 22.

(35) Chapter 1: Introduction. Second, the development of the software dates back to the beginnings of PVRE, when the task of accommodating the needs and abilities of users to the management and operation of the PV systems was the first requirement for the successful implementation of this technology. This has remained until today, constantly adapting to new hardware advancements. As regards the orgware, despite its developmental delay in PVRE, some of the factors that integrate it have reached a high degree of maturity. Several management and organizational models have been well described in the literature and applied in the field, especially since the 1990s, and they have been studied in depth by recognized international organizations such as the World Bank [17, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64] or the International Energy Agency [65, 66, 67]. However, the orgware has had several weak points during the development of PVRE, as will be discussed below. 1.3.5. Evolution of the HW, SW and OW in PVRE. 1.3.5.1 The 1960s and 1970s. Hardware development: reliability and cost‐ effectiveness in decentralized rural electrification The first terrestrial experiences of PV technology date back to the 1960s when Japan began to use it in maritime applications (light beacons, communications, etc) [68]. Paradoxically, oil companies such as Exxon, Texaco and Shell, among others, pioneered the use of photovoltaic solar energy. These companies had equipped their platforms in the Gulf of Mexico with lighted beacons, which were fed from non‐rechargeable batteries which were frequently replaced, at an operating cost of about US$2,100 per replaced battery. In the 1970s, these companies decided to change these accumulators for rechargeable batteries with a photovoltaic generator, thus reducing the operating costs by 95%. It was in 1968, in Niger, when PVRE started formally, through the installation of a system to feed a television in the Gondel school, close to Niamey [69]. The experience was expanded to other schools until 1977, after installing 123 PV systems. They were made up of a 282 watt peak (Wp) photovoltaic power generator, a 40 ampere‐hour (Ah) and 32 nominal volt (V) battery, and a charge controller to feed a television receiver of 32 W. The cost of these systems was US$3,100 per school in 1975, with an estimating price of US$0.12/hour of television, which meant US$3.75/kWh. Despite this enormous cost and considering that the lifetime of the PV system was 10 years (PV manufacturers at the time gave 5‐year warranties), the solution was 4 times cheaper than the option of using high‐capacity alkaline cells, for which the TV receivers were originally designed. In the 1970s, Father Verspieren in Mali [70], and his organization Mali Aqua Viva [71], instigated the first photovoltaic pumping systems programme for extracting water from wells, in order to try to solve the disastrous situation of thousands of people affected by the severe drought that suffered the Sahel region in those years. The use of PV pumps by Verspieren was the result of years of bad experiences with hand pumps and diesel generators because of their low reliability and high O&M costs. Mali Aqua Viva carried out the installation of 16 PV pumping systems (reaching a total power of 21.8 kW) between 1975 and 1980, which was one of the first milestones of PVRE to consolidate this technology as a cost effective and reliable alternative to diesel generators and hand pumps.. 23.