IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v88y2011i2p458-465.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electrification using solar photovoltaic systems in Nepal

Author

Listed:
  • Bhandari, Ramchandra
  • Stadler, Ingo

Abstract

Historically, the rural population of Nepal has been meeting their energy needs from traditional sources like fuel wood and other biomass resources. Only about 44% of the total population has access to grid electricity. Because of country's rough and mountainous topography, high cost of grid extension, and low and scattered population density, constructing some big power plants (e.g. large hydropower) can not meet the electricity needs of all people, especially those living in rural areas. Distributed generation of electricity, using environment friendly solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, might be one of the reliable alternatives for urban as well as rural electrification. This article begins with a general overview of energy resources in Nepal. Present status and perspectives of solar PV sector have also been discussed. Benefit cost and breakeven analyses of solar PV systems in Nepalese urban areas have been carried out. The breakeven year has been calculated between 2027 and 2036 for PV systems with system life time between 40 and 25Â years, respectively. It has been concluded that the solar PV systems are not the economic solutions for grid connected urban areas in Nepal. On the other hand, this article concludes that the rural electrification projects should not be decided on the basis of mere monetary benefits, rather many social aspects should be considered, and in this case, there are not convincing alternatives to solar PV systems for electrification in many rural villages in Nepal.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhandari, Ramchandra & Stadler, Ingo, 2011. "Electrification using solar photovoltaic systems in Nepal," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 458-465, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:88:y:2011:i:2:p:458-465
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306-2619(09)00516-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gautam, Rajeeb & Baral, Sumit & Herat, Sunil, 2009. "Biogas as a sustainable energy source in Nepal: Present status and future challenges," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 248-252, January.
    2. Zahnd, Alex & Kimber, Haddix McKay, 2009. "Benefits from a renewable energy village electrification system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 362-368.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gurung, Anup & Kumar Ghimeray, Amal & Hassan, Sedky H.A., 2012. "The prospects of renewable energy technologies for rural electrification: A review from Nepal," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 374-380.
    2. Gurung, Anup & Oh, Sang Eun, 2013. "Conversion of traditional biomass into modern bioenergy systems: A review in context to improve the energy situation in Nepal," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 206-213.
    3. Klein, Sharon J.W. & Coffey, Stephanie, 2016. "Building a sustainable energy future, one community at a time," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 867-880.
    4. Baruah, Debendra Chandra & Enweremadu, Christopher Chintua, 2019. "Prospects of decentralized renewable energy to improve energy access: A resource-inventory-based analysis of South Africa," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 328-341.
    5. Lahimer, A.A. & Alghoul, M.A. & Yousif, Fadhil & Razykov, T.M. & Amin, N. & Sopian, K., 2013. "Research and development aspects on decentralized electrification options for rural household," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 314-324.
    6. Maes, Wouter H. & Verbist, Bruno, 2012. "Increasing the sustainability of household cooking in developing countries: Policy implications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 4204-4221.
    7. Emilio Rossi & Erminia Attaianese, 2023. "Research Synergies between Sustainability and Human-Centered Design: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-19, August.
    8. Suberu, Mohammed Yekini & Mustafa, Mohd Wazir & Bashir, Nouruddeen & Muhamad, Nor Asiah & Mokhtar, Ahmad Safawi, 2013. "Power sector renewable energy integration for expanding access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 630-642.
    9. Curran, Franziska & Smart, Simon & Lacey, Justine & Greig, Chris & Lant, Paul, 2018. "Learning from experience in the water sector to improve access to energy services," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 41-50.
    10. Arthur, Richard & Baidoo, Martina Francisca & Antwi, Edward, 2011. "Biogas as a potential renewable energy source: A Ghanaian case study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1510-1516.
    11. Muhammad Irfan & Michael P. Cameron & Gazi Hassan, 2023. "The Causal Impact of Solid Fuel Use on Mortality A Cross- Country Panel Analysis," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(1), pages 144-153, January.
    12. Okudoh, Vincent & Trois, Cristina & Workneh, Tilahun & Schmidt, Stefan, 2014. "The potential of cassava biomass and applicable technologies for sustainable biogas production in South Africa: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1035-1052.
    13. Jha, Sunil Kr. & Bilalovic, Jasmin & Jha, Anju & Patel, Nilesh & Zhang, Han, 2017. "Renewable energy: Present research and future scope of Artificial Intelligence," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 297-317.
    14. Cheng, Shikun & Li, Zifu & Mang, Heinz-Peter & Neupane, Kalidas & Wauthelet, Marc & Huba, Elisabeth-Maria, 2014. "Application of fault tree approach for technical assessment of small-sized biogas systems in Nepal," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1372-1381.
    15. Gurung, Anup & Gurung, Om Prakash & Oh, Sang Eun, 2011. "The potential of a renewable energy technology for rural electrification in Nepal: A case study from Tangting," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3203-3210.
    16. Michael Acheampong & Qiuyan Yu & Funda Cansu Ertem & Lucy Deba Enomah Ebude & Shakhawat Tanim & Michael Eduful & Mehrdad Vaziri & Erick Ananga, 2019. "Is Ghana Ready to Attain Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Number 7?—A Comprehensive Assessment of Its Renewable Energy Potential and Pitfalls," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-40, January.
    17. Abhi Chatterjee & Daniel Burmester & Alan Brent & Ramesh Rayudu, 2019. "Research Insights and Knowledge Headways for Developing Remote, Off-Grid Microgrids in Developing Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-19, May.
    18. Amin, Sakib Bin & Chowdhury, Mainul Islam & Jamasb, Tooraj & Khan, Farhan & Nepal, Rabindra, 2023. "Green Energy Finance and Gender Disparity: The Case of Mountain Areas in Bangladesh," Working Papers 2-2023, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    19. Xavier Lemaire, 2018. "Solar home systems and solar lanterns in rural areas of the Global South: What impact?," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(5), September.
    20. Syed M Amir & Yonggong Liu & Ashfaq A Shah & Umer Khayyam & Zafar Mahmood, 2020. "Empirical study on influencing factors of biogas technology adoption in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan," Energy & Environment, , vol. 31(2), pages 308-329, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:88:y:2011:i:2:p:458-465. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

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

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

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

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

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

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