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SOLAR-POWERED LED LANTERNS FOR THE REPLACEMENT OF OIL LAMPS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Impact/Purpose:
Two billion people light their homes with oil lanterns. These lamps produce a minuscule amount of light, but due to their inefficiency are estimated to result in the additional consumption of one third of the total energy used globally for all electrical home lighting, with a disproportionately large contribution to carbon dioxide and soot emissions. In a continuing trend, light emitting diodes (LEDs) have recently become more affordable and more power efficient. It is hoped that within five years, large manufacturers will produce solar-charged battery operated LED lanterns suitable for the world’s off-grid poor. This enormous market would make for huge economies of scale, replacing billions of dollars in annual sales of petroleum products with clean technology. But due to low profit margins, high risk, and distribution difficulty, sensible products for the developing world’s poor are sometimes overlooked. Our goal is to demonstrate to large investors the viability of this opportunity, by designing and putting into service simple, rugged, low-cost solar LED lanterns.
Description:
The design process yielded an inexpensive yet highly useful lantern design which is attuned to the needs of the impoverished population. Keeping in mind the $20 off-the-shelf cost limit, the bulk-manufacturing cost was limited to $10 in order to allow for overhead (profit, transportation, tax) on the way to the consumer. Within this cost structure, the student team designed a lantern that produces roughly twice as much light as the average kerosene “hurricane” lanterns popular in India and elsewhere and lasts for 5–6 hours per night. Circuitry was included to limit the battery discharge cycle so that the battery will last for three to four years, eliminating the need for replacement of batteries in locations where they are impossible to get.
Using this design, prototype lanterns were constructed in a durable housing which is largely waterproof and shockproof. Sixty-five prototypes were built by hand in rural Orissa, India, in the lab space of a partner non-governmental aid organization which is located just minutes from poor, un-electrified villages. While the initial plan was to simply distribute the lanterns as gifts and ask for feedback, it was quickly realized that a large demand actually existed for even the prototypes, and that there would be no need to give them away. Instead, the lamps were sold for 950 rupees ($21.40) each, directly to poor kerosene-lamp users in surrounding communities who were eager to adopt the new technology.
Remarkably, most of the consumers who bought lanterns earned just $1–$2 per day, but were more than willing to make an investment of 950 rupees ($21.40) in order to avoid paying for kerosene lamp fuel in the future. The closest similar lighting device available in Orissa, India, a government-subsidized solar-powered fluorescent lantern, is nearly three times the off-the-shelf cost (and six times the manufacturing cost) of our low-power LED-based device.
The student team was mildly stunned by the success of the trial, and a student-owned company has already spun off of the project. Both the university and the student-owned company are now working to rapidly bring this technology to the market on a larger scale.
Proposed Phase II Objectives and Strategies:
The team’s first goal in phase two is to incorporate feedback gained directly from the end users and to optimize the already-successful design for mass production. Industrial design and manufacturing engineering students and advisers will rework the lantern enclosure and form factor. A team will be dispatched to China this summer to visit component sources, and to make plans with a final manufacturer. Injection molding tooling will be produced which can be used to create an economically sustainably mass-marketable product. A trial production run of 1000 units will then be distributed by our partner NGO and by newly interested officials in Africa. The student-owned company which has been incorporated to move the product into the marketplace will have the opportunity to benefit not only the end users, but also to help the entire world, by reducing global warming emissions.