The long road to universal electrification: A critical look at present pathways and challenges

Nearly 840 million people still lack access to electricity, while over a billion more have an unreliable electricity connection. In this article, the three different electrification pathways-grid extension, centralized microgrids, and standalone solar-based solutions, such as pico-solar and solar home systems (SHS)-are critically examined...

Solar home systems for improving electricity access: An off-grid solar perspective towards achieving universal electrification

Almost a billion people globally lack access to electricity. For various reasons, grid extension is not an immediately viable solution for the un(der-) electrified communities. As most of these electricity-starved regions lie in tropical latitudes, the use of off-grid solar-based solutions like solar home systems (SHS) is a logical approach....

Quantifying the Benefits of a Solar Home System-Based DC Microgrid for Rural Electrification

Off-grid solar home systems (SHSs) currently constitute a major source of providing basic electricity needs in un(der)-electrified regions of the world, with around 73 million households having benefited from off-grid solar solutions by 2017. However, in and of itself, state-of-the-art SHSs can only provide electricity access with adequate...

Exploring the boundaries of Solar Home Systems (SHS) for off-grid electrification: Optimal SHS sizing for the multi-tier framework for household electricity access

With almost 1.1 billion people lacking access to electricity, solar-based off-grid products like Solar Home Systems (SHS) have become a promising solution to provide basic electricity needs in un(der)-electrified regions. Therefore, optimal system sizing is a vital task as both oversizing and undersizing a system can be detrimental to system...

Estimating battery lifetimes in Solar Home System design using a practical modelling methodology

The rapid increase in the adoption of Solar Home Systems (SHS) in recent times hopes to ameliorate the global problem of energy poverty. The battery is a vital but usually the most expensive part of an SHS; owing to the least lifetime among other SHS components, it is also the first to fail. Estimating battery lifetime is a critical task for...

Constructing accurate equivalent electrical circuit models of lithium iron phosphate and lead-acid battery cells for solar home system applications

The past few years have seen strong growth of solar-based off-grid energy solutions such as Solar Home Systems (SHS) as a means to ameliorate the grave problem of energy poverty. Battery storage is an essential component of SHS. An accurate battery model can play a vital role in SHS design. Knowing the dynamic behaviour of the battery is...

Understanding the Present and the Future Electricity Needs: Consequences for Design of Future Solar Home Systems for Off-Grid Rural Electrification

Solar Home Systems (SHSs) can fulfil the basic energy needs of the globally unelectrified population. With costs as one of the biggest barriers for SHS uptake, optimizing the system size with energy needs is crucial. Where most solutions focus only on the present needs, this work also addresses the future energy needs. The methodology includes...