LESSONS LEARNED FROM MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF PV SYSTEMS IN ASIA S. Kumar, M. Anisuzzaman and S.C.

Bhattacharya
Energy Field of Study, Asian Institute of Technology P.O. Box 4, Klong Luang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand Tel.: +66 2 524 5410: Fax: +66 2 524 5439 E-mail: kumar@ait.ac.th

ABSTRACT: Photovoltaic (PV) systems have emerged to be the cost effective and a suitable approach for rural electrification in the rural areas of the developing countries. Many PV systems have been installed in different parts of Asia during the last decade. However, experiences show a considerable break down and/or failure of projects/systems in very early stage. Due to the lack of proper monitoring of the systems it is difficult to ascertain the reasons for such failures. It is well understood that unless the immature failure of the PV systems/project can be overcome, the optimum acceptance of PV technology for rural electrification cannot be ensured. To address this issue, a monitoring and evaluation process was set up under the framework of the regional research and dissemination program in selected Asian countries sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). A number of PV demonstration systems of different categories were installed. They include Solar Home Systems, Battery Charging Stations, Street Lighting Systems, Water Pumping Systems, and Micro Utility, etc. The systems were regularly monitored and the data were analyzed. Monitoring included the technical problems, maintenance requirements, costs associated with maintenance and replacement of components, time required for completion of service, etc. The management systems associated with the community systems were also monitored to decide on the most suitable approach. Financial mechanisms offered in different countries were assessed to show the most suitable approach for the rural consumers of the region. This paper analyzes the monitored data obtained from different systems installed in the region. It also complies the output of the analysis and outlines the performances, reasons of break down, cost of maintenance for different systems, suitable financial mechanisms and management approach. Keywords: PV systems, demonstration, monitoring, lessons learnt, capacity building, financing

I. INTRODUCTION Worldwide energy consumption is projected to grow by 59% over the next two decades of which one half is expected to occur in Asia and in South and Central America (IEA, 2001). Electricity is the mainstay that gears the development activities leading to improvement in quality of life. Access to electricity can bring many positive impacts including poverty

alleviation. However, rural areas of the developing countries lack proper infrastructure and the households are sparsely settled that extension of grid network to connect those areas are not economically viable. A number of endeavors by Government/International Agencies have been made in recent years to provide electricity to this dis advantaged population by solar Photovoltaics. Moreover, a steady fall in the price of PV modules and accessories has accelerated the use of PV systems as an alternative to rural electrification in many developing countries of Asia like Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Nepal the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The trend is expected to increase more as photovoltaic is evolving as a full- grown mature industry. In spite of the favorable market for growth of PV technology, there are a number of barriers, which hinder the widespread use of PV systems in rural areas of developing countries of Asia. These include lack of awareness of the technology among the potential consumers, improper management, lack of service, improper selection of customers, and lack of knowledge in system performance. Performance of SHS can be learned by closely monitoring installed systems over a long period. The results would be more acceptable if the systems are installed and operated in real conditions. 1.1 Batteries Monitoring of PV systems has been regarded as crucial to obtain system performance knowledge. Experience from various projects shows that the absence of monitoring is one of the major causes of the project failure. Monitoring helps to summarize the important lessons learnt regarding the performance, trouble shooting techniques, etc. Experience of PV systems installed in Pacific island shows that most of the systems faced technical deficiencies e.g. problems with controllers, batteries, etc [1]. A study of a SHS project implemented in the Free State Province of South Africa where 1,700 SHS were installed, shows that about 40% of the respondents were unhappy or very unhappy with the system, which was largely caused by non-working conditions of many systems [2]. 1.2 Charge controller The maintenance requirements of the batteries are not onerous, but they must be carried out. The EC funded program for the Pacific Islands, implemented in the mid 1980s, suffered from load controllers with excessive electricity consumption, modules with 20 percent lower efficiency than specified and 100-Ah batteries with an actual capacity of 60Ah [3]. In a GTZ supported PV program on Burias Island of the Philippines more than 100 PV systems were installed. But problems arose within a year, and after two years more than half of the batteries had failed [4]. 1.3 Lamps The problems with charge controllers are also considerable. A controller with selfconsumption equal to 10mA requires 2.8 Watt-hour power per day. Inefficient controllers can

lead to abusing the system by the user. In the Bampers project, Indonesia, the users bypassed the charge controller when they found that the controllers were not working properly [5]. The DC lamps used in PV systems usually have short lifetime. The design parameter and the laboratory test do not match with the operation in field. It has been noted the lifetime of high efficiency 12 Volt bulbs in practice is less than one-tenth of that achieved in the laboratory (six months rather than six years) [6]. 1.4 Design Under designed systems are also threats to successful PV project. This problem may not be encountered instantly but systems will become nonfunctioning over a period of time. A survey carried out under the demonstration program of SPLVs, notes that the Department of Nonconventional Energy Sources (DNES) sanctioned 1,500 lanterns to Maharashtra, 15% of them failed within two years of installation [7]. About 75% of the SPLVs surveyed had the maximum power just about half of the specification. In a World Bank funded project in Kenya, the solar lanterns did not work successfully due to the sealed lead acid battery as they were not specially adjusted for low voltage disconnect. The users were found to excessively exhaust the battery before recharging [5]. Another study in Kenya shows that thousands of poorly designed and installed lighting systems have failed for lack of infrastructure [8]. Most of these problems with the PV systems could be overcome if a proper monitoring system was in place after the installation of the systems. With this objective, a number of PV demonstration systems were installed under the framework of Renewable Energy Technologies in Asia programme in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Lao PDR and Vietnam. The programme is sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and coordinated by the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). The systems installed included Solar Home Systems, Battery Charging Stations, Street Lighting Systems, Water Pumping Systems and Micro Utility Systems. This paper analyzes the data obtained from monitoring different systems installed in the region. It also compiles the output of the analysis and outlines the performances, reasons of break down, cost of maintenance for different systems, suitable financial mechanisms and management approach.

II. DEMONSTRATION UNDER RETs IN ASIA PROGRAMME The PV systems installed fall under the following broad categories: a. Solar Home System (SHS), defined here as a PV system usually consisting of one PV module, a battery, a charge controller, lamps and required accessories. Such a system is used to operate lamps, watching Black & White TV, running radio/cassette player etc. for a period of 4-5 hours a day. b. Battery Charging Station (BCS), which consists of array of PV modules, which are used to charge batteries for individual households. The batteries are usually used to power lights, TV, Radio/Cassette Player etc. without installing a PV module along with the system.

c. Micro-Utility (MU) concept is based on installation of an array of PV modules in a suitable position within a cluster of users (e.g. rural market) and provides power to the lights in shops. The users in this case are not owners of the system. They pay a monthly/daily fee for the service. d. Community systems are used to serve a community. Some examples of this category are Solar Cultural Boat, Solar Ambulance, etc. Table 1 gives a list of systems installed under each category in different countries. Table-1: Summary of PV system installed in different countries under RETs in Asia Country Number of systems Type of application Size (Wp) Bangladesh 21 Solar home system 850 19 Micro Utility 2,650 2 Mobile phone shop 60 Cambodia 111 Solar home system 1,300 Lao PDR 5 Solar home system 375 2 Battery charging station 1,740 1 Solar pumping system 300 Nepal 4 Solar home system 140 1 Solar computer 300 Vietnam 10 Solar home system 750 1 Battery charging station 1,000 1 Solar cultural boat 640 1 Solar ambulance 530 1 Solar street light 75 Total 180 10,710

III. MONITORING METHODOLOGY The approach of this monitoring was to obtain information about the demonstration systems and to evaluate the impact of the demonstration. Monitoring w as done every month and the evaluation of the data was done once every three months. 3.1 Data collection Survey questionnaire were prepared to obtain data on systems performance of SHSs and visitors information, etc. Trained personnel were sent to the installation sites to record the data according to the questionnaire. The questionnaire mainly included the following: Base information: It contains location of the site of installation, name of the user, date of installation, date of survey, sunshine condition and time of survey. This gives the base information about the system and the survey environment. Technical information: Technical parameters like short circuit current, open circuit voltage and load current of the solar module; battery voltage with and without load; etc are measured

and recorded. Specific gravity of each cell of the battery is also recorded. These parameters help to compare the present performance of the system with the original state. Maintenance record : Maintenance works done since last monitoring were also recorded. These include type of maintenance, who did the maintenance, cause of failure and the expenditure of the maintenance. In addition, the time period between breakdown of the component and remedies were also recorded. This helped to get an idea of how the service was available in the locality. Usage information and payment: Average operating period of each load since the last monitoring was recorded. This helped to check to what extend the system could meet the load requirement. This also helped to get an idea of load pattern of the consumers, which could be useful for future initiative. Payments made by the user were also recorded. This included the payment for repair and maintenance, payments as installment for the system, etc. The users were also asked about the satisfaction of using the system. Dissemination information : The number of visitors came to watch the system since last monitoring was also recorded. This gave the effects of demonstration. Sometimes the visitors made some inquiry about the system, which were answered by the user. Where found available, such information were also noted in the survey questionnaire. These data/information were compiled in Excel worksheets. This helped to analyze the data for evaluation through tabular and graphical forms. 3.2 Evaluation The data evaluation process included the following steps: 1. Percentage of time the system was operational. In case of below 100%, reasons of nonoperation were described, 2. List of breakdowns and their repair details, availability of service, average monthly cost of repair and maintenance and time required for maintenance, 3. Load pattern of the user and percentage of load met by the energy supply, 4. Monthly expenditure related to the system (i.e. the sum of repair, maintenance, payment for the system, interest in case of loan, etc.) and percentage of this cost over total income of the user, 5. Level of user satisfaction, reason of dissatisfaction suggestions from the user to improve the system based on local demand, and 6. Users comment regarding reliability, entertainment facility, social status, safety, contribution to increased income, initial expense, maintenance expense and quality of light of the system.

IV. ANALYSIS Quality: Components of solar PV systems should be of sufficiently high quality for a successful demonstration. Level of quality can be assessed by the extent which meets the users expectations. Users should be highly satisfied with the components they are using. Low quality components suffer from short life and/or never meet the requirement which result in user dis-satisfaction. Frequent failure of even a small component e.g. fuse, can cause user dissatisfaction, which leads to non-payment problem. This would lead the total project to failure. 4.1 PV Modules Figure-1 shows the number of modules according to the capacity used in different countries for demonstration since 1996. It shows that 93 (41%) of the total 229 modules were 41-50 Wp range. This is probably because this size is suitable to meet the average demand of the rural households. The second category was 10-20 Wp range, which was specially used in Cambodia to serve small load demands of the low- income level people.
80 70 Number of modules 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 10 Wp 17 Wp 34 Wp 36 Wp 37 Wp 40 Wp 50 Wp 75 Wp Number Month

60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Months installed

Module capacity

Figure 1: Distribution of PV modules according to their capacity and months installed. Performance of the modules was satisfactory. No complain about modules were reported since their installation. The users were trained to clean the module surface regularly to have maximum output from it. Module performance was tested by measuring the open circuit voltage (Voc) and short circuit current (Isc) and comparing with its original value. No change in output was noticed by this time. Figure-1 shows that some modules e.g. 17, 34, 36Wp, etc. have been installed more than 3 years before, and are working with satisfactory performance. 4.2 Battery It is well understood that the battery is the most expensive part of a solar PV system, which needs frequent replacement. Therefore, life of a battery can change the operating cost of the system dramatically. Considering a project life of 25 years, a battery with 3 years life has to be replaced for 8 times. If the battery costs 20% of the total system cost, the maintenance and operation cost will drop to 50% when the battery life is extended to 5 years.

Problems with battery have many dimensions. Specific gravity of electrolyte can go down due to shallow charging or over discharging of the battery. A battery with low electrolyte gravity cannot receive charge fully which causes low power supply to the load. Five batteries of the systems installed in Bangladesh suffered from this problem. In this case, sulfation develops in the battery. The batteries were then recharged by electricity from some charging stations with high current. The sulfation was broken and the battery was brought back to working condition. The battery life was also found to be satisfactory. In Bangladesh, automotive batteries were replaced after two years which satisfied the minimum expectation as the mentioned by manufacturer was 2-3 years. Many tubular batteries were also installed with expected life period of 5-8 years. Some of these batteries have already passed five years of operation in the field. In Lao PDR, most of the batteries under BCS were deeply discharged. Although, the users were given a state-of-charge indicator to disconnect the battery when the charge level is shown to be low, most of them did not maintain accordingly. The battery problems noticed are summarized in Table 2. Table 2: Summary of battery problems Type of problem Reason Specific gravity of the Over discharging electrolyte went low (bypassing the and sulfation formed controller)

No. of cases 5

Low charge acceptance

Deep discharge (beyond prescribed limit) Lost charging capacity Life expired after two years as they were automotive battery

12

Remedies taken Added distilled water and recharged by grid electricity to break sulfation. Normal condition was restored. Continuously charged for two days by solar PV array in BCS Users were asked to buy new one.

The types of problems found with the battery were different from what is noticed in the literature review. For example, there were no cases where the actual battery capacity differed from that specified by the manufacturer or the battery capacity was less than what the system required. 4.3 Charge Controller As the charge controller protects battery from over charging and over discharging, the quality of the charge controller highly influences the system performance. Few problems were found with the controllers installed in Bangladesh e.g. load output was not working, MOSFET failed in one case, wire got disconnected, etc. Wire connection was reestablished by the local trained

technician and other faulty controllers were instantly replaced by a spare one and the faulty ones were sent to the Head Office for repair. In beginning in 1997, few users in Bangladesh bypassed the charge controllers to get more power from battery which reduced the battery capacity. However, the user training has helped to overcome this problem. The users are now aware about the problem that might cause in bypassing the controller. Table 3 gives a summary of the problems faced related to the charge controller. Table 3: Summary of problems with charge controller Type of problem Reason No. of cases Load output was One transistor burnt 1 not working out Not charging the battery Charging MOSFET burnt out 2

Load output was not working

Fuse blown

14

Remedies taken The controller was replaced with a spare one and the faulty one was repaired The controllers were replaced with spare units and the faulty ones were repaired (MOSFETs were replaced) Fuses were replaced with new ones by the users

By passing of charge controller was also found in the GTZ supported PV program in Burias Island of the Philippines. But, the case of high self-consumption was not found as this was already taken care while developing the charge controllers under this project. 4.4 Lamps (ballast) Various types of lamps were used with PV systems. One of them is fluorescent lamp (luminaries) of 10/20W usually mend for AC applications. Special circuit called ballast is needed to power these lamps by DC. Few problems are always found with these circuits since the operation takes place with very high frequency in the range of 30-50 kHz. The major problem found with lamp is early blackening of lamps. Adaptive researches under RETs in Asia project were done to improve the circuits aiming to reduce blackening. The other problems are burning out electronic components, fuse blown, etc. Table 4 gives the problems associated with the lamps. Table 4: Summary of the problems associated with the lamps Type of problems Reason No. of cases Remedies taken Not working at all Transistor of the circuit 1 Instantly replaced with new burnt out one and the damaged circuit was brought for repair Not working at all Fuse blown 20 Replaced with new fuses by the users Short life of the lamps has also been noted in the literatures. But it has not been explicitly mentioned if it was due to blackening problem as it was in the case of this project. The other

problems (mentioned in Table 4) probably occurred due to the use of low grade electronic component in the devices. 4.5 Other problems Apart from the problems stated above, there were other problems with the systems which can be summarized as shown in Table 5. Table 5: Summary of other problems of PV system Type of problems Reason Wire connecting to the Mishandling lamp was disconnected One channel for battery charging was not working The relay connected to the channel was damaged

No. of cases Remedies taken 3 Reconnected by the locally trained technicians. 1 Replaced with the new relay

V. SPECIFIC OBSERVATIONS The following are the observations made from the demonstration: Awareness : Rural people of developing countries are not aware of the PV technology. People learn to know the technology by seeing rather than reading in newspaper or hearing to radio. In a study made in Lesotho shows in 1993, 26% of the Lesotho population had heard of PV. In 1999 this had increased to 58%, mostly through seeing a system in the neighborhood or at friends place (74%) and for the rest (15%) it was by the radio [5]. It was also noticed that these are people in rural areas who do no t know the advantages of having electricity in their houses. After seeing it in their neighbors houses they are aware of the potential and demand for electricity grows. Therefore, demonstration is a must to reach the information to this group. Financing : Appropriate financial arrangement is necessary for the rural people to afford the system. It has been found that the initial purchase price of the system has confined its use only to a number of people. Therefore, to make PV systems affordable to a large population, attempts should be made to reduce the initial payment. This may include payment in installment, fee-for-service or other suitable modes. Fee- for-service system is more appropriate for the market places where the users would operate loads for a fixed period everyday. Experience in Bangladesh shows that sales on credit (down payment + monthly installments) was highly accepted by the users. Training : Technician training is essential for ensuring the local technical support as well as to make the project sustainable. This ensures that the project/activity will continue after the outside support is withdrawn. Users training has great impact as the users can do trouble shooting of minor problems like replacing fuse, adding distilled water, replacing bulbs, etc. This avoids technician call and increases system reliability. Women and young children

should be invited for training, as they are the main users of the systems. It is expected that they will pay proper attention to maintenance. Availability: Systems with different options should be available to the consumers so that they can choose themselves according to their demand. Components/accessories should be locally available so that the users can them buy easily when required. This increases acceptability of the technology to the users. Local management : For the community systems involvement of local people in management gives better result as this avoids the risk of theft and non-payment threat. In projects where there is a little or no contributio n of the users (e.g. micro- utility, BCS, etc), the possibilities of failing in the long run. This can cause due to the improper maintenance, intentional damage or discontinuity of payment. Such problems can be avoided by involving local people in the management of the project. For example, involvement of community people in the management of BCS in Lao PDR has resulted in good care to the project. The tariffs have been regularly collected and no damage or theft of the system has been reported so far since 1998. Income generation : PV systems do not generate income directly but it helps in income generating activity such as extends the working hour, creates convenient environment for business, etc. However, there are few cases where PV systems are being used as an income generation activity. For example, the owner of micro utility system rents lights to the nearby shops/houses, which directly generates income.

VII. CONCLUSIONS Monitoring and evaluation carried out under RETs in Asia project provided significant lessons for the future initiatives. It shows that various kinds of problems can occur with the PV systems in real operation. Problems with the PV module were negligible. Batteries were seemed to have frequent sulfation deposit due to low level of cha rge with the PV module. Some techniques need to be developed to avoid this problem. Charge controller and other electronic devices including ballast for fluorescent light suffer from the use of low grade electronic component. Low quality fluorescent bulb was liable for short life of the lamps. By passing of charge controller can be eliminated by training the users and creating awareness. Easy financing is necessary for the rural people to afford the system. Fee- for-service seems to be the better option from the users point of affordability.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The financial support by the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida) for this study in the framework of the project Renewable Energy Technologies in Asia - A Regional Research and Dissemination Programme is gratefully acknowledged.

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