Photovoltaic residential electrification: A case study on solar battery charging stations in Brazil

Solar battery charging stations (SBCSs) were initially conceived to bring t he price per household of electrification within the capacity to pay of the rural poor, and to foster the establishment of community businesses supply ing the modest electricity demands of end users far from the grid in an ent repreneur-based electrification model. The great foreseen advantages of SBC S were security of payment for the electricity service and operation under much higher system final yields and capacity factors. However, an analysis of the annual costs of SBCSs indicates that they are in reality more expens ive alternative than solar home systems (SHSs) owing to the shorter lifetim e of batteries. Moreover, battery transport for recharging and lower energy capacity, among other drawbacks, make users opt for the added convenience of a SHS. A financial analysis of a general case study is presented, with S BCS and SHS designed to offer equal electricity services. The local field e xperience is that after one and a half years SBCSs were replaced by SHSs. C opyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.