Abstract
Through rigorous rural electrification projects, over 99.97% of Bhutan’s households now have access to electricity, which is predominantly generated from run-of-the-river hydropower plants. Despite this achievement, around 5% of the rural households still do not have access to electricity to meet their cooking load demands and, therefore, they extensively rely on firewood, LPG, and kerosene for cooking purposes. Apart from hydropower, penetration of other renewable sources such as solar and wind power in the country is negligible. Thus, an attempt was made to determine the investment costs of installing PV systems for off-grid households in remote settlements by studying their economic feasibility. The study shows that the initial cost of investment for an off-grid Solar Home System for a rural household is US$1.42 per Wp using polycrystalline PV modules and US$1.55 per Wp using monocrystalline PV modules. The average cost of installing SHS is determined to be US$ 2342.67 per household. The results of analyses indicate that standalone SHS for remote rural households is not financially viable with the current price of electricity supply in Bhutan. However, SHS provides a more cost-effective option than a grid-line extension, which is estimated to cost about US$ 6700 per household for the remaining off-grid settlements.
Highlights
Bhutan greenhouse gas emission rate is 0.8 metric tons per capita (World Bank GHG data 2012) As per data collected by the National Energy Commission Secretariat (NECS) the country’s carbon dioxide emission of 2.2 million tons per year can be totally sequestered or captured by the country’s forests
This research showed that the economic indicators indicated that investment in the installation of standalone solar home systems (SHS) in remote off-grid settlements in Bhutan was financially not viable with the existing (BAU) conditions
It can be concluded that even though the world market prices of PV modules are falling sharply, the Balance of System costs, which comprise the major portion of the cost of PV system installation is still expensive, especially for remote off-grid locations
Summary
Bhutan greenhouse gas emission rate is 0.8 metric tons per capita (World Bank GHG data 2012) As per data collected by the National Energy Commission Secretariat (NECS) the country’s carbon dioxide emission of 2.2 million tons per year can be totally sequestered or captured by the country’s forests. With the carbon sequestration capacity estimated to be 6.3 million tons of CO2 per year, Bhutan is really even a carbon sink economy. This assured by the Kingdom’s constitution that the mandates the government to maintain the country’s present 60% minimum forest cover (BP p.l.c., 2018; International Energy Agency, 2017; Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2018b; REN21, 2017, 2018). Cooking and space heating are the dominant thermal energy use in rural areas and in the country as whole. They mostly use biomass fuels that include firewood, briquettes, and biogas
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