Solar lighting for street vendors in the city of Dehradun (India): A feasibility assessment with inputs from a survey

•Survey on current lighting practices of street vendors has revealed challenges.•Vendors prefer a reliable and low operation cost lighting device on rental mode.•Usage of solar lighting devices under Solar Cities Programme has been explored.•Rental mode of lighting via 7W CFL solar lantern is the most suitable option.•Solar lighting via central charging station on rental mode is a viable option.

An attempt to assess solar lantern based lighting option for street vendors (often without access to grid electricity) in the city of Dehradun through a questionnaire based survey is presented. Survey results indicate that the vendors are more likely to adopt a lighting device on rental mode that offers the benefit of low operation cost and high reliability.The study points that the city has potential for 10 Central Charging Stations of 1200 Wp capacity each. Each station would cater to the lighting needs of 100 vendors. Based on the vendors willingness to pay for lighting services, estimated minimum acceptable daily rental to an entrepreneur operating a station is Rs 3.97. This is about 45% of the average daily rental of Rs 8.90 that the vendors are willing to pay. For daily rental ranging between Rs 4.00 to Rs 9.00, the mark-up for the entrepreneur would range from 16 to 160%.