Siemens press picture

Guest bloggers Tim Gengnagel and Philipp Wolburg have spent time in Tanzania, working with night fishermen who use kerosene lanterns to attract fish to their nets.  Long operating hours, plus high fuel-use rates of these pressurized lanterns result in 1 to 1.5 liters of kerosene use per lamp each night provide a strong case for conversion to LED sources. Sadly, climate change (to which kerosene lamps contribute), is hampering fish yields in this part of the world.

Tim and Philipp are now working with the Lumina Project and returning to Tanzania to clarify the technology needs and communicate these to off-grid lighting manufacturers interested in this market.

They conclude their post with a handfull of questions intended to gather existing experience in this space and guide their research.  We would appreciate hearing from anyone in the Lumina network with insights into these questions.

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Around 22,000 fishermen[1] live at the Tanzanian shore of Lake Victoria and earn their livelihood catching a small fish called Dagaa[2]. In order to attract the Dagaa, the fishermen use pressurized kerosene lanterns mounted on top of small wooden floats. Each of these lanterns burns about 1 to 1.5 liters of kerosene per night of fishing. They fish around 25 nights per month, depending on the seasons. Per night, they operate the lanterns between 8 to 12 hours each night while fishing.

Consuming about half of the fishermen’s earnings, the use of these lanterns seriously impedes  economic development. The dependence on kerosene leaves fishermen vulnerable to the price volatilities and uncertainties associated with this fuel.

In addition to this, the total annual combustion of about 8,000 tons of kerosene is associated with 25,000 tons of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Furthermore, during rough fishing nights some of the kerosene spills into the already highly polluted lake, which remains one of the main drinking water sources for the local population.

Similar night-fishing techniques are employed all around the lake and to our knowledge are common in developing countries all around the world.

There have been several attempts to address this issue and replace the kerosene lanterns with more efficient lighting devices. We dealt with this problem for the first time in 2009, when we conducted some fieldwork in Mwanza, Tanzania. We developed an initial prototype lighting system based on locally available items (see photo below). We employed a waterproof Sundaya Multilamp (CFL), which was rated at 1000 lumens, plus solar batteries (12V, 24Ah) that we charged with an over-sized 50W Solar panel to ensure full recharging even on cloudy days. Due to the heavy battery we had to supplmeent the traditional float. This system was able to meet the demands of the fishermen with respect to the catch volume they were used to from the kerosene lanterns.

Another CFL-light we tested provided only 600 lumens, which did not meet  expectations. Concerning the required light putput, it shall be noted that the much of the light is wasted because it is either reflected by the float or on the water surface.

Most fishing lamps that are employed in the Western world are submersed and emit green light. While we had no chance of testing for the color yet, submersed lights were less efficient (in terms of fishing success) than if they were mounted on floats above the water level.

The task of replacing kerosene lanterns with more efficient lighting technologies faces several specific challenges. On the one hand, a new system needs to provide high lighting output, while being reliable and operating for 8 to 12 hours daily. This places some constraints on the battery employed. For the future, the use of LED-technology thus seems to constitute a promising approach.

That said, the initial cost of a new system is critical. The first prototype had a cost of $365 (including the solar panels), which had a payback time of less than 12 months. This is an indicator of the great potential of a new lighting solution. Some fishermen explicitly stated their ability to afford the new system even at this price. However, given a large variance in income among the fishermen, it is clear that initial cost remains a major obstacle. Certainly costs could be lowered by shifting to LED systems. Micro-finance products seem appropriate to address this problem. It seems crucial to us that throughout the process of distributing and financing the system local structures are used. These structures could include fish traders, fishing camp chiefs and boat owners.

Questions:

1. Since the potential market size is a very important characteristic to factor for manufacturers, we would be very interested in learning about other where such night-fishing techniques are known to be employed. For example, we have seen reports that about 85,000 shrimp fishermen use kerosene lighting in Sri Lanka.
2. Which types of fuel-based lanterns are utilized for night fishing in these locations?
3. What is the nightly fuel use, and how does the cost compare to the value of fish caught?
4. Seeing that this project targets a niche market, it seems advisable to search for  existing products that meet the need (rather than looking to industry to design a new product for a  niche market). We would be grateful for any recommendations as to which existing products may be suitable.
5. How is the main fish sought in Lake Victoria--Rastrineobola argentea/Silver Cyprinid--attracted to light? (Diffusion, pattern, distance, color). What  differences might exist for other economically desirable fish that are caught at night?

Tim Gengnagel and Philipp Wolburg

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The U.S. poultry production industry is now experimenting with LED lighting, and seems to be achieving good results.

While we are confident that the developing world will adopt LED lighting more rapidly than the industrialized world (for chicken production and many other uses), it is nice to see that the "North" is making progress.

A separate article in World Poultry magazine discusses illumination for broiler production, noting that excessive illumination reduces yields....

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We began recommending LED lighting solutions for refugee camps about a decade ago, but it seems to have taken until now for a detailed demonstration project and follow-up assessment to be performed.

With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Red Cross, Elephant Energy focused on victims of the 2010-2011 floods in Northern Namibia (download full report).  More than 37,000 people were displaced during this event, many of whom had no light of any kind at night.  Tenure in “flooding camps” varies widely.  Prior floods have resulted in people being bound to relief camps for up to four years.

According to the report, “the intent of the Energization Plan was to distribute solar-powered lighting and charging technologies in flood-camps and to evaluate the benefits of these technologies in the disaster situation by conducting baseline and follow-up energy surveys with product recipients."

A baseline survey of 169 households in one of the regions confirmed the obvious: lighting fuels in refugee camps are predominantly candles, kerosene, and even wood.  In this area, 61% of those surveyed used candles for light, while 7% used kerosene and another 7% used wood.  19% had no indoor lighting whatsoever.  Respondents reported  spending US $2.25 per week on traditional lighting fuels.

The solar-charged products were targeted at particularly vulnerable flood victims, including 1) school-going children, 2) vulnerable and disabled people (based on Red Cross criteria), 3) orphans and vulnerable children with special needs and 4) child-headed households.

Four commercially available off-grid solar-charged LED lighting products were chosen, some of which also had cell-phone charging capabilities.  In all, 2,280 lamps were distributed. Most of the systems offered had passed successfully through the Lighting Africa quality assurance process. This type of situation -- centralized product selection and procurement – is an ideal application of the Lighting Africa protocols.

According to 192 follow-up surveys, 93% of the recipients reported being “very happy” with the products.  Respondents claimed that they obtained nearly 4 hours per day more lighting than they enjoyed previously.  Candle use dropped from 61% to  4%. The lights achieved the desired goal of deeply offsetting the use of traditional (polluting) lighting strategies.

In addition to energy savings, anecdodal reports indicated many other benefits, including that children studied into the night, money was earned (by using the systems to charge cell phones for others), snake attacks were prevented and hours of productive time were added to each day.

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The following Guest Blog is provided by Peter Alstone from Humboldt State University

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Let’s begin with what should be obvious: about half the people on Earth are women.

In light of that, it is absolutely necessary to account for their needs and power to make a difference in the off-grid world. 

The Lighting Africa program released a new report that moves the conversation forward about how to expand women’s role in the off-grid lighting market forward.

Women, like men, have a lot to gain from modern lighting and their involvement in the supply chain is a key to success. The benefits of modern lighting are well known. Compared to kerosene it can save money, reduce indoor air pollution, eliminate fire risk, and provide better quality light. What might have been less obvious is the key role women play in the success of the market…

The five key things you should know are:

1)    Women and men agree! Modern, clean lighting is better than the fuel-based status quo, and there aren’t big differences in their preferences for household lighting.

2)    Entrepreneurial women and men run different kinds of businesses with different lighting needs. Think vegetable stand versus metal work.

3)    Women hold the purse strings in many households, and make about 40% of the decisions related to lighting purchases. They are key buyers.

4)    Women and children bear the brunt of indoor pollution from fuel-based lighting. Both men and women with awareness of the issue prefer modern lighting.

5)    We need to deploy micro-finance to support modern lighting. Women have even less access to formal banking than men in the developing world.

~ Peter Alstone

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Remarkable video report on the BBC news today.

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A light went on (pardon the pun) in the mind of an socially minded designer in the Philippines.

Millions of people in the developing world live in slums comprised of sheet-metal buildings with few if any windows.  It's dark inside, even in the middle of the day.

Grab a discarded plastic water bottle.  Fill it with chlorinated water.  Add a collar of sheet metal roofing and drop it in a same-sized hole, and, shazam, a bright source of daylight into an otherwise dark dwelling.

The inventor says that the first one was installed only four months ago, and there are already 15,000 units.  He claims that each unit produces the equivalent of 60Watts (incandescent) light....  I'm not sure of that, but whatever the exact illuminance, it beats an otherwise dark room, and turns trash into a treasure at the same time.

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I had a double-take yesterday while walking the halls at Ikea.

Well, actually it's closer to "Hundreds of Millions", but who's counting?

Anyway, how nice to see this. The PV cell is encased in a (presumably) water-tight box along with the batteries, and just pops out of the base for charging.  The product generates a healthy pool of very uniform light - about 1 meter  in diameter at 1 meter from the source.

One can't know how good the product is until Ikea should put the product through the Lighting Africa testing paces. Let's hope they do this.

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Tomorrow's issue of the China Dailly adds to a growing body of evidence on how off-grid lighting can improve the quality of life, especially for children.

Citing results from a recently solar-elecrified Tibetian Yak herders school in the village of Yenge, the article describes how darkness after nightfall contributes to illiteracy:

While Yege's children are the township's first generation who can read, they would effectively become illiterate after dusk.  ... The lack of electricity is a factor in Qinghai's 10.2-percent illiteracy rate - the country's highest after the Tibet autonomous region, according to the 2010 census.

Despite China's prodigious efforts to extend the grid into rural areas, China still has 8.5 million households without electricity. (My guess is much more....)  Nomadic groups, are in particular need.  More than half of these household heads can't read and never attended school.

In contrast, 2/3 of those with receiving solar lighting under a new campaign can read.

According to the village Chief:

"Without power, the school was like a prison," he says. "So parents didn't want to send their kids. They thought it was more important for them to herd yaks than to study. Having electric lights also saves the children's eyesight from the damage caused by straining to read and write by candlelight, he says.

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The Gallup polling organization released some remarkable survey results today.

Aside from the interesting facts and figures on electrificaiton rates and types of energy used for lighting, the poll asks about the importance of electric lighting in overall well being, When asked to evaluate their lives using the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, those who say their main source of lighting comes from electricity rate their present lives more than 0.5 points higher on a scale from 0 to 10 than those who rely on fuel lamps or other sources.

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Think the price of gas is bad, try kerosene for lanterns.

(Chart from Lumina Project report: "Solid-State Lighting on a Shoestring Budget: The Economics of Off-Grid Lighting for Small Businesses in Kenya")

The world has been on the fossil fuel roller-coaster for decades, and the most recent spike was one of the worst.  According to the Chart, what goes up does not always go down -- at least for one location in Kenya that Lumina Project researchers at Humboldt State University have been following particularly closely.  Wealthy energy users in the industrial world saw a greater drop in oil prices following the spike than did those at the bottom of the economic period.  One of the many inequities in this domain.

In practice, kerosene prices vary widely.  Many factors are at work.  Where it is heavily subsidized, prices can be quite low, e.g. around $0.25/liter in India today, despite many recent price increases.  It is said that the Indian government spends more subsidizing kerosene prices than it does on education....

On the other hand, where energy taxes are employed, kerosene prices can rise well over $1/liter in the cities.  But this is for people able to buy relatively large volumes (a liter or more at a time).  The poorest off-grid lighting users often can only afford a few tablespoons of fuel at a time, and are hit with substantial markups for that. Users report paying more than twice the price at the pump for these small quantities. I've seen prices reported ranging from $0.07 to $2.00 per liter (Table S5 in the Supporting Online Material for an article we wrote in Science).

Similarly, as one gets farther from urban centers, prices tend to go up.  This is due in part to scarcity, but also to the greater difficulty of gaining access.I took the following photo in rural China, where people had to carry kerosene up very steep hill trails.

Data on kerosene prices are very spotty.  Sadly, there is no central repository of this information focused on what is paid by households in the developing world. Having this information is important for humanitarian purposes, and to perform accurate cost-benefit analyses on alternative strategies.  Those paying the most for lighting fuels will of course enjoy the fastest payback times for substitutes such as LED-based systems.

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Lighting Efficiency and Product Design Optimization
The steadily increasing efficacy and decreasing cost of LEDs is creating opportunities to provide more light for longer periods to off-grid consumers.  This note presents a basic framework for understanding how lighting system efficiency can affect overall product design.  It will be helpful and informative for any stakeholder who is interested in the implications for manufacturers and consumers of LED technology trends.

Download

Interpreting Standardized Specification Sheets (SSS)
In response to broad demand from the industry and stakeholders, Lighting Africa has launched a Standardized Specification Sheet (SSS) program. The specification sheets provide third-party verification (via the Lighting Africa website) of quality and performance for off-grid lighting products that have been tested according to the Lighting Africa Quality Test Method (LA-QTM). This briefing note provides guidance for interpreting the information on a specification sheet. You can access the specification sheets for the various products that have been tested at www.lightingafrica.org/specs.>
 

Download

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The following is reprinted from the current issue (February 2011) of Lighting Africa's newsletter.  It summarizes a remarkable new study providing an unprecedented view into the current African market for solar powered off-grid lighting products, and a look to the future.

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The African market for off-grid lighting products is taking off (1). The market is projected to achieve 40 percent to 50 percent annual sales growth, with 5-6 million African households owning quality portable lights (primarily solar) by 2015 (2).

Lighting Africa contributed to this market acceleration: in 2010 alone, the sales of solar portable lanterns that have passed Lighting Africa’s quality tests grew by 70% in Africa. This resulted in more than 672,000 people on the continent with cleaner, safer, reliable lighting and improved energy access.

The state of the market

The market for off-grid lighting was initially supported by donor-led initiatives, and was characterized by high unit costs and technologically inadequate products that were not suited to the needs of African consumers. Today, the market is driven by private sector interests: innovative business models, unique marketing strategies, and products tailored to meet consumer demand hold sway.

All players along the value chain have contributed to this transformation.

Manufacturers and distributors have started to design and distribute better-quality products, with lamps that cater to the preferences of people at the base of the pyramid. These products have a longer battery life and provide better illumination. While there are many substandard products in the African market, the number of quality products is increasing. Lighting Africa has contributed to this development by designing a quality assurance program that allows manufacturers, distributors and other bulk buyers to test and improve the quality and design of their lighting products. Eight products have so far passed these quality tests and become Lighting Africa Associates. They are available in the African market, retailing between $22 and $97.

Consumers have benefited from better-quality products that suit their needs. The new-generation lamps offer features that consumers are demanding, such as cell phone chargers. The prices of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), solar components, and batteries have also fallen sharply over the five past years. As a result, off-grid products are more affordable to low-income households. Consumers are also learning to distinguish between quality and substandard solar lamps. For example, Lighting Africa’s consumer education campaign has reached more than 9 million Kenyans living in rural areas, raising their awareness of the benefits of solar lighting over fuel-based lighting, and helping to make them informed buyers.

For African consumers, the main obstacle to making the switch to clean, off-grid solar lighting is the up-front cost of solar portable lanterns. Kerosene may be expensive, hazardous, damaging to one’s health and a pollutant, but it has the advantage of being sold in small portions. A rural, off-grid household in Kenya will typically spend between 20 Kenyan shillings (about $0.25) and 50 Kenyan shillings a day on kerosene – but would struggle to find the 2,000 Kenyan shillings ($24.60) required to purchase a quality solar portable lantern. Several organizations have started to tackle this cash-flow issue. In several African countries, distributors of solar portable lamps are partnering with savings and credit cooperative societies to provide loans to consumers who wish to purchase a solar portable lamp. This is the case of “Developing a Delivery Model to Support Consumer Financing Schemes for Solar Powered Lighting Systems”. The project, implemented in Kenya from November 2008 to June 2010, was a winner of the Lighting Africa Development Marketplace Competition which provides seed funding for innovation in off-grid lighting product development.  Other Development Marketplace winners such as the project “Recharging Fees For Lamps Can Buy hours of Solar Light” in Uganda  allow consumers to rent a lamp, building consumer confidence in these products over the longer term. 

African governments are looking at clean, off-grid lighting as an interim measure for rural communities not yet connected to power grids. While there is no substitute for grid electrification, clean, off-grid lighting products can offer an interim solution for communities without access to power and provide immediate benefits. A number of African governments have taken this route to complement their plans for rural electrification. For example, Lighting Africa has signed memoranda of understanding with the governments of Mali, Senegal, and Ethiopia to support their work in increasing access to lightning for rural populations.

Microfinance institutions and banks are starting to see the potential of the clean, off-grid lighting market in Africa. Until recently, this was considered a high-risk market, but this perception is changing rapidly. By 2015, some 65 million in Africa could have portable solar lighting. Access to finance – for distributors in the area of trade finance as well as consumers with limited cash flow – is the single major obstacle to scaling up the market. Financial institutions may be unfamiliar with portable solar lighting and wary of the impact of low-quality products on their investments. Lighting Africa is working with banks to develop a risk-sharing facility for distributors. Over the past six months, Faulu, a leading Kenyan microfinance institution working with Lighting Africa, has begun to provide loans to rural households to buy solar portable lanterns. 

Lighting Africa has been a key driver in transforming the off-grid lighting market in Sub-Saharan Africa, working as a neutral broker of industry interests and supporting the growth of innovative companies along the supply chain. This is a contribution to the global market for affordable, modern, off-grid lighting, which has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world.  

(1) Solar Lighting for the Base of the Pyramid – Overview of an Emerging Market, a Lighting Africa publication, 2010.
(2) This excludes poor-quality battery-powered LED torches (many in the $1 to $10 range), sales of which are in the millions.

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Guest blogger Jennifer Tracy repots from Mali.  Back in 2006, I too saw this kind of arrangement in the heart of Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum.  At $0.45/kWh for bootlegged grid power, LED lighting is particularly cost-effective!

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My immediate reaction as my eyes wandered beyond the rust-colored dirt to the pale blue skyline of a peri-urban town outside of Bamako, Mali was of concern, but not without amusement for the chaos I was looking at.

Ten-twenty-thirty wires or more sagged between makeshift wooden posts as they made their way to small grass huts, stone-block buildings, and scrap wood lean-to structures.  This was no government or NGO program advancing access to electricity beyond the urban center, but of local entrepreneurs taking it upon themselves to meet the needs of their community. 

These small power providers (SPP) are your typical businesspeople with an atypical strategic plan. 

Here is how it works.  A community member with ample financial means purchases an electrical connection from the national electricity provider.  This costs the individual generally between $1,000 and $2,000 depending on the distance between the existing grid and where they want the electricity.  Now this community energy investor becomes the SPP. At a rate of $200 per connection and $0.45 per kWh anyone from the community can purchase a (illegal) connection from this individual. 

For the SPP this quickly becomes a very profitable business.  For his or her one legal connection purchased from the electrical company they can connect up to 40 others.  This arrangement, though quite expensive in terms of price per kWh for the community members, is the only accessible option if one doesn’t have thousands of dollars up front.  And by the look of things people are willing to pay.  In the mess of tangles wires, what I saw as a potential catastrophe the local people see as opportunity, progress and hope.

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I'm all too often met with the question: “Hey, those LED lights are great, but doesn’t it take more energy to make them than they ever save?”  Fair question, but misguided.

Thanks to the initiative of Peter Alstone from the Lumina team, we have just completed a novel assessment of embodied energy in LED off-grid lighting products.

We found that the energy embodied in the LEDs, batteries, housing, wiring, chargers, and other components of LED systems for a particular popular system is “paid back” within a month or two of use (grid charged versus solar charged) thanks to the kerosene saved.  Looked at another way, the LED light saves 12-24 times as much energy as it takes to manufacture it.

Our assumptions are quite cautious in that we assume (based on our field work) that the kerosene lantern continues to be used about half the time, and that the LED system has limited reliability and only lasts two years.

We estimate that the energy required to manufacture a grid-charged LED system is about 62 megajoules (MJ) [and a grand total of 96 MJ including the electricity to charge it for two years], while that for a solar-charged unit is about 143 MJ.  For comparison, the kerosene saved in just one month is 71 MJ. Another study estimated the embodied energy in a solar-fluorescent lantern at 560 MJ, which suggests yet another reason why LED solutions can be superior to last-generation technology.

As LED products improve, we anticipate longer service lives and more successful displacement of kerosene lighting, both of which will significantly speed the already rapid recovery of embodied energy in these products.

Our study provides a long list of embodied energy for a variety of components used to construct off-grid LED lighting systems and we invite readers to analyze other products.

Read all about it in our new report "Embodied Energy and Off-Grid Lighting."

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In a very human way, there is massive suppressed demand (or is it 'pent-up' demand?) for lighting services in the developing world.

We’ve  come across another “sleeper” in the quest for understanding energy use and off-grid lighting.

In many areas, end-users will prefer products that can be grid-charged, e.g., via cell-phone charging shops or other battery-charging methods. If the local grid relies on fossil fuels and the charger efficiency is low, then a non-trivial amount of energy may be consumed and corresponding greenhouse-gas emissions emitted. This is determined in part by differential between power delivered to the AC adaptor--affectionately known as Vampires, thanks to their teethy plugs--and that ultimately released by the battery to the light. Off-grid lighting products are often designed to be compatible with telephone chargers.

Worst case: dirty grid, inefficient AC adaptor = no net energy savings compared to kerosene (but, still much more light).

If the adaptors are highly efficient, the issue is not so important.  But, in practice, the adaptors that find their way into developing countries (and even into industrialized countries) often stink. We’ve tested AC adaptors obtained on the streets in Africa with efficiencies as low as 3% (!!) and none better than 25%.  More systematic work is clearly needed.

California has existing minimum efficiency standards for external power supplies, including those for cell phone chargers. The U.S. Department of Energy has begun standards development for battery chargers and external power supplies, which could provide useful information and rating protocols for the off-grid lighting applications. EPRI also has an activity focused on these end uses. The ENERGY STAR program has a rating protocol for AC adaptors (including mobile phones). The best charger on their list as of 21 February 2010 is 96% efficient, and the worst 24% efficient. To get the total amount of grid electricity required for “off-grid” lighting systems, these losses must be combined with battery efficiencies and other losses in power management. More background information on the subject can be found here. 

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Informed by the Lumina Project analysis conducted for the UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board, the CDM has released a new approved methodology AMS-III-AR: “Substituting fossil fuel based lighting with LED lighting systems” for quantifying the carbon reductions of LED lighting systems in off-grid contexts.

The guiding principals have been to provide a method more well-suited for LED projects and to trim the time and cost of qualifying a project and documenting the carbon savings, while requiring performance disclosure and embedding new criterion for minimum product quality while rewarding those products that exceed these minimums. In most cases, independent testing is required in order to demonstrate performance.

Key advancements and clarifications embodied in this new methodology include:

Baseline assumptions

• Uses deemed baseline fuel-based lighting characteristics and operational assumptions (0.025 liters/hour fuel-use rate, 3.5 hours/day daily burn time (DBT), 365 days/year, leakage factor of 1.0, net-to-gross factor of 1.0, fuel emissions factor of 2.4kgCO2/liter).
• Recognizes that target lamps can exist among both household and non-household users (former version implied households only)
• Employs a dynamic baseline based on documented historic growth in kerosene use.

LED attributes and characteristics disclosure

• Assumes 1:1 replacement of kerosene lanterns by LED systems.
• Requires disclosure of various system performance parameters (e.g., lamp wattage, lamp rated lifetime, charging system capacity, type of charge controller, type of battery, operating time per full battery charge, charging time, indicators of ruggedness).
• Accommodates grid-charged products (e.g. via cell-phone charging enterprises).
• Ensures compliance with local regulations regarding battery disposal
• Requires minimum warranty of one year.
• Recognizes the portable nature of the technology with respect to the project boundary.
• Includes no allowance for suppressed demand.

LED deemed values and performance requirements

• Stipulates a deemed product lifetime of two years unless independent test data demonstrate otherwise (seven years, maximum). Ex post field monitoring of lamps in service is required only if seven-year service life is assumed.
• Requires embedded LED lamps to have a manufacturer-certified minimum lifetime of 5000 hours, including lumen depreciation of no more than 30%
• Requires manufacturer-certified battery charging efficiency of 50% or more.
• Requires mimimum illuminance levels of 20 lux for task lighting and 4 lux for ambient lighting.
• Requires renewable charging system and battery size to be properly matched. Batteries must be rechargeable and replaceable, and availability of replacement batteries documented.
• No more than 8 hours of charging should be required to attain the deemed daily burn time of 3.5 hours.  Battery capacity is to be at least 150% of the daily burn time. For solar charging, the minimum solar fraction should be 100%.
• Requires dust and water tightness of IP41 per standard IEC 60529.
• Grid-based emissions are counted if the product is grid-charged.

Based on the minimum performance criteria specified in the new approved methodology, the deemed savings would be appropriately modest: 0.16 tons of CO₂ per lamp (over a two-year deemed service life). Moreover, low-quality products are ineligible for any level of CERs.  Conversely, alternate values for many factors can be used if adequately justified by the project developer, which could bring the avoided emissions significantly higher. The approved methodology is more streamlined than that proposed in the original Lumina study insofar as some criteria are required (e.g., warranty) rather than optional, and thus separate tracking, accounting, and weighting factors are not needed.

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During Lighting Africa's recent conference in Nairobi, a group of key stakeholders signed a letter of intent to develop an off-grid lighting stakeholders' association.  This association has potential to provide a much needed platform for the development of important initiatives such as regional consumer awareness programs and a global quality assurance program for the sector.

LOI_Association.pdf Download this file

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Bottom-Line: The birds did just as well with the LED system as with the old kerosene standby, or with a more traditional solar-fluorescent solution that cost six-times more and performed less well in cloudy conditions! 

Switching to LEDs pays back in 1.5 years (compared to 9.3 years for solar+fluorescent) and has increased the profitability of the farmer’s business by 15%.

The fieldwork was led by guest blogger Jennifer Tracy, a Lumina Project researcher, recent graduate of the Energy, Environment and Society Masters Program at Humboldt State University and now a consultant to the Lighting Africa Project on off-grid lighting in sub-Saharan Africa.  Lighting Africa co-sponsored this study.

Note: Download the full report.

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 Like a proud parent, I said farewell to the chickens last week, after going from 2-hour-old fluffy chicks to fully-grown meaty broilers in just 5 weeks.  Off to the slaughterhouse they graduated. 

Our project was looking at the economics of lighting an off-grid farm in rural Kenya that raises chickens for meat.  This type of production traditionally requires lights to be on during the night in order to stimulate growth.  Because much of the production happens where there is no electricity grid, some farmers use kerosene lamps in the coops. 

This becomes very expensive (and polluting) as one liter of kerosene now costs around $0.80 and one coop which uses 8 lamps consumes about 3 liters per night. That comes to about $80 per coop per 35-day growing cycle. To put things into perspective, the average monthly wage for people living in the same town as the farmer in our study is about $60.  So, kerosene is an expensive lighting source.  But, an even more potentially profound and impactful finding is that lighting through the night, whatever the source, may not be necessary for growth…at least not throughout the entire 35-day cycle. 

The study compared 3 coops with 3 different lighting systems. Both the fluorescent and LED lighting systems were powered by solar (plus some wind backup for the coop served by fluorescent lights). The third coop used kerosene only.  The LED system provided more—and more uniformly distributed—light, along with other operational advantages for the farmer.

On day 14 the clouds settled into Maai Mahiu (where the farm is) and stayed for two weeks.  The fluorescent system (built before we came along) turned out to be very much undersized (the solar panel does not make as much energy as is used by the lights), but the LED system is sized so that the lights will work even during extended periods of cloudy weather.  On about day 15 the fluorescent lights began going off after a few hours of being on … around 1AM.  This pattern continued for much of the remaining days in the cycle.  The surprise was to watch the weights of the chickens across the three houses: they increased at near equal rates, regardless of the lighting.  Well, it might be the case that a farmer who questions the tradition of leaving the lights on all night may be in a position to save on lighting costs. 

The only real difference in outcomes was cost.  The undersized fluorescent system had an initial cost of 300,000 Kenya Shillings (about $3,800), while the LED system cost 46,800 KSh (about $590).  Over the course of the growth cycle, the fuel-lit coop used about 6,300 KSh of kerosene (about $80/US). So, the LED system would pay for itself in 35 operating weeks (about a year and a half for this producer, who produces 5 “crops” per year), while the fluorescent system would take 240 weeks (9.3 years).

Bottom line: Thanks to kerosene savings, the farmer’s net after-tax revenue increased by 15% with the LED system.

That’s nothing to cluck at!

- Jennifer Tracy

Note: Download the full report.

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We knew it in principle and now we know it in fact: fuel-based lighting emits indoor pollutants that can be inhaled deeply into lungs of over a billion people that use such light sources.

Kerosene lamps are often located in close proximity to users, potentially increasing the risk for respiratory illnesses and lung cancer. Particulate matter concentrations resulting from cook stoves have been extensively studied in the literature. However, characterization of particulate concentrations from fuel- based lighting has received minimal attention.

Using actual measurements, our new research—just published by the Lumina team in the journal Indoor Air — demonstrates that night vendors who use a single simple wick lamp in high-air-exchange market kiosks will likely be exposed to dangerous PM2.5 concentrations that are an order of magnitude greater than ambient health guidelines. Particles of this size (2.5 microns in diameter) are known to penetrate particularly deeply into the lungs when inhaled.

We found that using a hurricane lamp will reduce exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations by an order of magnitude compared to using a simple wick lamp. Vendors using a single hurricane or pressure lamp may not exceed health standards or guidelines for PM2.5 and PM10, but will be exposed to elevated 0.02–0.3 micrometer particle concentrations. Vendors who change from fuel-based lighting to electric lighting technology for enhanced illumination will likely gain the ancillary health benefit of reduced particulate matter exposure.

We found that vendors exposed only to ambient and fuel-based lighting particulate matter would see over an 80% reduction in inhaled PM2.5 mass if they switched from a simple wick lamp to an electric lighting technology.

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The primary benefactor of the Lumina Project is Art Rosenfeld. 

Regarded by many (including me) as the “Grandfather of Energy Efficiency”, one of Art’s many causes is what to do about fuel-based lighting.  So much so that Art donated a major chunk of his handsome Fermi Award to the Lumina Project via the Blum Center for Developing Economies.  See our presentation on the Lumina Project at a special symposium honoring Art and his work.

We estimate that the global greenhouse-gas emissions from fuel-based lighting are about 190 megatonnes of CO2/year, making the best-case potential for savings with alternatives such as grid-independent LED systems a little north of 60 Rosenfelds  -- the greenhouse-gas emissions avoided by replacing 60 coal-fired power plants!

Not bad for a day’s work.  Thanks Art!

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