Gham Power Launches Solar Hoarding Board Lighting System

Yesterday – Tuesday July 27, 2010 – was a big milestone for Gham Power. We launched our new solar hoarding board (aka “billboard”) lighting system with a solar hoarding board of our own right next to Hotel Shangrila in Lazimpat.

At approximately 8 pm, our chief guest Mr Manoj Goyal, CEO of Clean Energy Development Bank, gave a two thumbs up sign to our engineering staff to flick on the switch, and the ultra bright lights from our 50-watt LED projection lamps (which btw, produce same amount of light as regular 500-watt halogen bulbs) shone on our first hoarding board ever.

Next time you are coming down the hill from Panipokhari going towards Lazimpat, check it out right next to Shangrila, and let us know what you think. Of course we are totally biased that this is way cool , check out these pictures:

Gham Power's Solar Hoarding Board

Gham Power Billboard Lit by Solar

Beginning in December 2008, Nepal Government has banned hoarding boards from using utility electricity as a part of its National Energy Crisis Plan. As such, most hoarding boards are in the dark during nights. The ones that are lit use diesel generators. But these are not really viable options. Evening and night-time impressions are most profitable for advertising, so keeping hoarding boards in dark during night at least halves their effectiveness, if not more. And as far as diesel is concerned, it tends to get pretty expensive where lighting a 15′x30′ board at least costs between Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000 a month. Furthermore, diesel generators also produce dirty fumes, noise, which the entire neighborhood finds pretty annoying, plus you need to keep a staff who can turn the generator on and off.

Enter Gham Power’s hoarding board lighting system which provides a better, faster, cheaper (and cleaner) alternative with solar.

With all of this put together, we ended up with 2 systems that provide 6 hours of lighting each night – a 2-lamp system to light up boards up to 15′x30′, and a 3-panel system to light larger boards up to 20′x40′. With a 3-year financing program, the cost of the 2-lamp system is Rs 4,900 per month, and the 3-lamp system is Rs 8,600 a month, significantly less than running a diesel generator and halogen lamp combo.  More importantly, with these options, you can pay off the system in 3 years, and continue to own it for next 25 years, and the payback period becomes much less.

So, for any hoarding board owner out there, this system provides a way to reduce your lightings costs, get rid of all the operational hassles of owning a diesel generator, plus your brand benefits from being “green” with the use of renewable energy like solar to light your hoarding board (the one by Shangrila is available to rent btw – call us at 4004545)

All Eyes on Gham Power's Solar Hoarding Board Right Before Lighting

All in all, it was a fun event. We were also joined by Mrs Barsha Shrestha, GM of Clean Energy Development Bank (also our partner providing financing to our customers), and a few friends from the media also attended the event (thanks for the coverage). Keep your eye on the major newspapers on Thursday July 29th, and also Kantipur TV. Also, a big thanks to our dear friend Abid Shah, CEO of Media Adventures, the media agency whose hoarding board we used for the first implementation of our solar lighting system.

Above all, thanks to our wonderful team at Gham Power for making this possible. We have a lot of hoarding boards to light, I sure hope each one is as fun and exciting as this one.