Inverter in home lighting system

While it is too much for a home to change all the gadgets to be changed to work on batteries or DC, we advise a step by step process starting with LED lighting systems.

So in situations like grid failure or even the regular load shedding people have access to almost normal lighting levels without use of noisy generators or inverters that give up in a couple of hours.

Most of our clients have inverters but have difficulty in charging the batteries due to erratic mains supply and have got used to clean and reliable lighting working autonomously on Solar charging.

The next step is to enable LCD TVs and STBs to be made operational as normally they work on adaptors giving out a 12V DC.

As an Industry, Solar professionals should look at popularizing Peltier effect refrigerators and AC/DC washing machines etc. I think the inverter based AC shall slowly have dual power capability to allow working on solar or batteries in the near future.

So the path to adoption seems to be not a matter of subsidies or how cheap the solution is but more to do with maturity of the ecosystem of white goods to work on DC and the electrical wiring at home and office.

If one models the demand-supply profile for a home that has the option of deriving electricity from the grid and other captive generation means (diesel genset or inverter/battery setup or solar PV+inverter/battery), it is possible to assess whether there is any true potential for a reasonable financial return on investing in solar PV. It must be borne in mind that the proliferation of residential roof top systems in developed economies was primarily due to incentive mechanisms that guaranteed a return in excess of 10%. Point being that I am yet to come across a study that analyses the implications of investing in a solar PV rooftop system in India. Data such as this is great armor for any consultant.

A major variable is what you are displacing. Grid electricity varies from very low (subsidized) to reasonably high (in private developer built colonies in NCR etc.). Similarly use of diesel in hotels with large roof-top area offers displacement potential for solar PV (not entirely though). In urban homes which already have an inverter/battery system in place, the cost of a solar PV system then only includes that of the panel which can improve investment profile.