Development of solar home systems for home lighting for the base of the pyramid population

Low level of rural electrification rate is attributed to the high cost of grid expansion combined with the insufficiency of energy resources and lower demand for the energy. Furthermore, populations in rural areas in developing countries are characterized by their low incomes and savings. About 4 billion people live at the base of the pyramid (BoP), having an income of US$1–4/day/person at the local purchasing power parities. Usually, villagers use home lighting for 4–6 h per day and spend about US$5–10 a month on kerosene fuel in most parts of the world. Therefore, the motivation of the present investigation is to provide the modern lighting to rural populations and to replace the currently inefficient and unhealthy kerosene fuel illumination without any addition to the existing expenditure on kerosene fuel based lighting. We have developed a typical 12 V DC LED (light emitting diode) photovoltaic system and installed in CouréMbatar in Senegal and adopted fee-for services energy delivery model. The concept of LED solar lighting with no additional burden to the current cost of lighting is widely accepted by the villagers and may provide the guidelines for a targeted solution for the rural electrification.