A user-centric assessment of solar-photovoltaic-home-lighting systems in rural parts of Assam, India

Abstract

Access to continued energy in Indian villages especially in the northeastern region of India is still a challenge. Off-grid electrification utilizing small-scale photovoltaic applications such as a solar home system (SHS) offers opportunities to ensure access to electricity to the needed rural parts. However, such systems distributed under various government schemes are not been received well in the past by the intended rural user due to multiple challenges, including the lack of user and context-specific design. Thus, the need for a user-centric design becomes critical in developing solutions appropriate to the rural needs of the studied region and relevant. The present work, therefore, intends to investigate the issues with the existing/conventional SHSs. Portability, maintenance, functionality, affordability, and user satisfaction were the issues of paramount importance. The user needs have been mapped in accordance with the identified concerns to finally evolve a user and context-specific design for SHSs. The proposed design has also been investigated for the identified issues and a comparative assessment was made with the conventional SHSs. In order to better assess the conventional and proposed SHSs for usability, adoption, safety, and the musculoskeletal disorders system usability analysis (SUS), technology adoption model (TAM), perceived ergonomic analysis, and Ovako Work Posture Analysis System (OWAS) were also carried out. The superiority of the proposed user and context-specific designed SHS was revealed over the conventional SHSs. The study indicated that embracing a user-centric approach for the design-development of small-scale photovoltaic utilities may assist in the dissemination of such products to rural grassroots.