Solar based lighting is becoming more in demand and more affordable.  Combined with new LED Light-Emitting Diode technologies solar lighting could be a major help in rural areas across the globe.  GSBF has begun a lighting project that is a 12V DC based solar LED lighting system ($55) for rural & urban homes which use kerosene fuel for home lighting.  LED bulbs have also been designed for homes connected to the 220V AC grid who face power cuts of 5-10 hours each day.  These systems could use rechargeable batteries to store energy when the power is on.  These systems are being marketed mainly in the rural areas of India.

 

MNES (Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, Govt. of India) have included the creators of these solar systems in the panel to finalize the technical requirements for both solar home lighting and solar street lighting systems using LEDs.  These systems should create safer streets and better lit homes, churches and schools in these rural areas of the world.

 

 

Grameen Surya Bijlee Foundation (GSBF) started off as a non-profit organization to provide free solar home lighting systems to the destitute population who use kerosene for home lighting.  They realized later that it is better to sell them the solar lighting system at a affordable price which implies that instead of paying for kerosene monthly they could pay for the solar system on a monthly installment basis in a 24 to 36 month time frame using micro-loans.  It is the fish and fishing rod analogy, it is healthier to let the end-users or households gain responsibility of ownership.  Anything free is abused by these types of general populations.

 

Their now current model is a for-profit model (social entrepreneurship) business, but they believe that with GSBF (their original company) could offer free solar lighting systems to neutral environments such as village schools, community centres, charitable hospitals, places of worship etc. to bring awareness of these energy savings and increased access to light.  This would accelerate the adoption of the system by individual households using micro-finance, in a shorter time frame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their original company GSBF will be not-for-profit but the new company "DIGITAL SOLAR LIGHTING" is a for-profit enterprise, and they are very keen on setting up a solar panel plant to cater to both the rural & urban demand for these solar lighting systems.   The for-profit model allows investors to participate in two ways, not only to earn a rate of return on their investment, but also to contribute to social upliftment.

 

 

 

 

Digital Solar Lighting is importing single-junction amorphous light panels from China at $2 per watt but would prefer to have an in-house thin-film manufacturing company, and to have a better quality product.  The market for their solar home LED lighting system at $50 is at least $10 billion within India.  The market for the solar street LED lighting at $200 for 600,000 villages with 10 street lights per village is $1.2 billion.  At this time they have not included commercial and other high-end applications using solar.  One could extrapolate this to other developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin-America.  India is a very price-conscious country and affordability is a very key selling point to have a large-scale operation.  They are also looking at carbon emission credits to reduce the cost of the system.

 

 

In summary there is a commercial upside for a technology provider to partner with Digital Solar Lighting and make solar lighting the main-stream electricity provider to the advantaged and disadvantaged population of developing countries.  They are studying various possibilities for sourcing thin-film panels at less that $1 per watt manufacturing cost or maybe even set up a state-of-the-art thin-film solar panel manufacturing unit in India.  A company such as NanoSolar would be an interesting partner to reach our objectives.  Alternatively donations from foundations or companies' CSR divisions would go into implementing solar lighting systems to neutral environments as described above.