“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” This quote is perhaps a distorted version of another somewhat lengthy saying from the American essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s very popular in business circles, however, and is often used to highlight the importance of imagination, creativity, and innovation in the success of a new business endeavor. It is commonly believed that for a new business idea, product, or service to succeed, it must have one or more of thethree features: it should serve a new need; serve an existing need in a better way; or serve it at a lower price than the competitors.
Due to the growing unreliability and price of grid-supplied electricity in the country, a new need arose in the country for alternative means of meeting customers’ electricity demand, and enterprising individuals and vendors quickly jumped into the fray to make hay while the sun shone. First, it was through uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, and more recently, it’s through roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) products and systems. The sale and purchase of these products and systems currently is a booming business in the country by all counts.
“Isn’t it good to see Milton Friedman’s textbook free market system in real action?” you may ask. Yes or no, depending upon whom you represent. If you are a savvy entrepreneur always on the lookout for new and juicy business deals, this is a godsend once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to make quick and hefty profits. But, if you’re a technically uninitiated customer, like most of us, you have a real cause for concern as you could be getting fleeced by the suddenly-mushroomed entrepreneurs selling you substandard products at exorbitant prices whose real cost would become apparent only after a few years when the glare on your PV panels starts to wear off, but way too late to undo the damage or to hold the seller accountable to his before-the-sale claims.
If you happen to represent both the above sides, in other words our government, and have (read “should have”) interest protecting the legitimate interests of both, you have even a more serious cause for concern. You need to watch over the interests of responsible business owners while also protecting those of the customers against the fly-by-night business crooks. You can do it easily by establishing standards for the products that are being used in these installations. You will also need to standardize the language (terminology) that is being used to market these products so that each side fully understands what is that it’s dealing with and what’s its true price.
While standardizing of products as well as terminology is equally important for all sorts of solar photovoltaic products and applications like off-grid or stand-alone systems, behind-the-meter grid-independent or grid-interactive systems, small and distributed community level systems, as well as large central-station utility-scale plants, in the ensuing a few examples are discussed only for the first-type of applications since this appears to be most rapidly growing PV application in the country and also the one that’s most prone to exploitation by unscrupulous vendors.
Going for a PV at your rooftop isn’t just another plug-and-play fancy-looking appliance or gadget you buy for your home from the market. Depending upon your income, it could mean a serious investment whose fruit your family can relish for many years, if picked wisely, but can also come to haunt you, if you are duped by a glib salesperson. If you have decided to go solar for your home, in a sense, you have decided to be your own micro electric utility. You could even be a seller to your hitherto electricity supplier if you want to, but let’s leave this for some other day. The point is that, just like a major utility, you have to carefully work out your electricity demand and how best to serve it through a carefully selected and designed PV system. As such, you must be wise and careful, as the devil lies in the details.
No two PV panels are the same. Even if you are a home-owner with similar electricity demand size and profile, your PV system requirement in Islamabad may not be the same as it will be in Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, or Peshawar. Your PV system requirements must be carefully matched with the resource available at your particular location (solar irradiance) and for the micro-climatic conditions that exist there. In other words, one size does not fit all, and the most suitable PV system for you has to be precisely tailored to your requirement, available resource, local operating conditions, how much independence you wish to have from the local DISCO, and of course, how much you can afford to pay upfront and over many years down the road.
You need to watch over the interests of responsible business owners while also protecting those of the customers against the fly-by-night business crooks
Keep in mind that both the cost and efficiency of your PV panels will vary a great deal, depending upon the materials used in the solar cells underlying these shining panels. Low upfront cost PV panels may not be necessarily a cheaper option for you if you consider the average cost of a unit of electricity production over the normal expected life of your system. Also note that the efficiency and performance features of the PV panels are stated based on tests carried out by their manufacturers under standard laboratory conditions. Actual performance of your system will be significantly lower in the operating conditions on ground in your locality.
Be also aware that the efficiency of your PV panels will be subject to a host of factors including temperature, humidity, dust in the air, wind in your area, and if this was not enough, it will also deteriorate over time-more so in early years after your installation and then stabilizing somewhat as the time passes. Your PV system, and especially solar panels, will require regular maintenance, cleaning up, and some washing to ensure its continued trouble-free good performance. Be an intelligent customer and ask critical questions to your vendor about the after-installation service needs of your system to decide whether you would like to do it yourself or entrust him for that, obviously at some reasonable cost.
Please also be aware that PV system cost and performance is normally advertised for the solar panels and all other costs and performance parameters are not generally disclosed to you by vendors. It is there where the real catch is. Try not to be duped by the verbosity of the vendor or the fancy-looking marketing pamphlet he is so eager to throw at you. Ask full details such as the size, brand, specifications, efficiency, performance, normal lifetimes, and replacement cost records of these balance-of-system (BOS) components including inverter, batteries, charge controllers, maximum power point tracker, etc. Your actual investment and operation & maintenance cost will be for the whole system and not for the PV panels alone. You have the right to know all these details upfront to make a wiser choice.
Obviously, it’s difficult for you as an individual customer to be knowledgeable or expert in all the technical jargon of the photovoltaic industry and trade, but try to be as informed by reading relevant material from some credible sources before you actually decide to go solar. Try also to visit the websites of local organizations such as Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB), Pakistan Council for Renewable Energy Technologies (PRCRET), or Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) to see if you can get some good and professional information from these entities which will be happy to help or can guide you in making an informed choice.
The writer is a freelance consultant, specializing in sustainable energy and power system planning and development