Hybrid village grid for remote areas – an affordable alternative for rural electrification in Laos.
Sunlabob provides energy systems that run on multiple renewable sources: sun, water, wind, and biomass. Within our hybrid system, we combine these resources and feed them into the same village grid. The HVG utilizes solar energy – which is always available during the day time – and generators as back-up systems when water flow levels are low at different points in the year. This combination helps to go beyond improving living conditions and moves toward increasing income.
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A large number of villages in the Lao PDR will not be hooked up to the grid for many years to come. Their only resource of electricity will be decentralized small systems, i.e. solar systems or micro-hydro, but these require high initial investments and continual servicing, which makes them not affordable to many villagers. Moreover, there is a lack of long-term credit available in Laos.
Sunlabob offers rental services for energy systems to overcome these problems.
We buy equipment and install it, rent out energy systems, and pay back the investment.

Solar Community Systems (SCS) can be for either public or private purposes.
Public purpose systems include, for instance, lighting for schoolrooms, healthposts, etc. They must be funded through public mechanisms of the community. Private purpose systems involve various persons sharing a system for their own private benefit, such as a farmers group using solar pumps for a drip-irrigation system or a processing group operating a sterilizer or cooler. The groups finance such systems collectively.
Sunlabob has several years of experience in installing Solar Community Systems.

The solar water pump system provides a reliable and long-lasting technique, which is more cost-efficient than normal diesel water pumps. As the solar-powered water pumps run on a renewable energy source, the future cost can be better calculated, as opposed to insecure standard fuel prices. In addition, they cause fewer problems with noise, dirt, and fumes, so emissions can be reduced and they contribute to ecological sustainability as well. Low maintenance and an easy-handling technique are further advantages of this energy solution, and make the solar water pumps an affordable replacement for fuel-burning engines, windmills and hand pumps.

The households with the least income cannot afford to rent our Solar Home Systems. Nevertheless, they would very much prefer electric light to the petrol lamps and candles they generally use. Lower-income households have persistently asked us for cheaper solutions for basic lighting.  After some research, our solution is battery-charging stations for rechargeable lamps, which local operators rent from us. This allows us to expand the accessibility of solar lighting to the large number of lower-income households, while at the same time retaining all the proven advantages of a rental service for the villagers.

Rental system for solar home systems (SHS)

In Laos, nearly three quarters of the population live in the countryside in remote areas without access to public infrastructure, which means that access to roads is difficult and they are not connected to grid-electricity. Despite the fact that the villagers are very much aware of the importance of electricity for their livelihood, their only opportunity to access energy is via independent decentralized systems, i.e. solar panels.

However, solar lighting has some problems for benefiting poor rural households: Initial costs are beyond reach for most people, the servicing has to be assured over many years, and, in Laos, the lack of longterm credit does not allow villagers to invest.

 

Problem:

A large number of villages in Lao PDR will not be connected to the main grid for many years to come. Small village grids fed by decentralized local energy sources are an option to be explored and developed to overcome this lack of energy supply.

In some places it is feasible to consider hydro-electric solutions. During the dry season, in most areas, stream flows are considerably reduced. Hence, a feasible small grid has to be boosted with solar energy or a diesel generator. (In the future, after the commercial viability of its use is proven, we are planning to substitute the diesel with biofuel made from Jatropha. At the moment our partner LIRE is researching about the effectiveness of the Jatropha-seed-oil.)

In view of the government’s policy for decentralized energy production in remote areas, and in view of repeated requests by villages and district and provincial authorities, Sunlabob has looked into the possibilities of small hydro-power generation and the operation of village grids.  With regard to the national grid, the village grids themselves may also act as “systems-fringe boosters”, with their generators remaining operational in order to ensure voltage at the outer reaches of the grid.