PicoPV Costs

Costs

To assess the price-worthiness of PicoPV products available in the market today, and to get an idea of the price range for
which they will become a serious alternative for many end users, GIZ analyzed three dimensions of costs for a PicoPV lighting devices tested in the lab, namely:

• the initial investment, i.e. the lamp price,
• monthly cost, i.e. initial investment divided by lifetime,
• lighting service cost, i.e. initial investment divided by lighting output measured in kilo-lumen-hour.

Such relatively high initial investment costs will prevent a large-scale diffusion of PicoPV lamps among low income
strata for the time being, given their severely restricted household budgets (typically US$ 2-5 per month for lighting, with no buffer for savings) and lack of access to financial services. The initial investment ranged from (36 US$ to 120 US$).

In contrast, monthly costs are low (2 US$ to 9 US$, except for the poorest price performer) in comparison to running costs of kerosene wick lamps and candles (2-5 US$), not taking into account their inferior lighting output.

In terms of lighting service costs (0.10 US$ to 0.60 US$ per kilolumenhour), good PicoPV lamps perform much better than all traditional lighting alternatives, except for the kerosene pressure lamp (which in turn is as expensive in monthly cost and initial investment cost similar to most PicoPV products).

Due to the fundamental advantage of low lighting service costs, and in consideration of falling LED prices and increasing - and volatile - fossil fuel costs (further enhanced through carbon emission reduction targets), we expect this nascent market segment to take off massively over the next five years. Lighting Africa even forecasts a reduction of price about 40% until 2015. Increasing fuel costs will even increase this effect.