Solar PV Workshop for Businesses in Pokhara

Pokhara, 8 January, 2012. Businesses in Pokhara now have an economic and environment friendly option to deal with load shedding problem thanks to Gham Power. In a one-of-a-kind workshop titled “Get Cost-effective Backup Electricity from Solar PV During Load-shedding” at Raniban Retreat, Pokhara, Gham Power educated hoteliers and other business owners in the area to manage backup electricity in a cost-effective way.

The workshop had 38 attendees from hotels, housing, children’s home and other business -entities. The event started with a tour of the solar PV system installed at Raniban Retreat. The lights in each of the rooms, restaurant and passageway are being lit with the solar electricity. In addition, the fridge and freezer is also being powered by solar. In average, the 3 kilowatt solar PV system produces 19 KWH (units) energy per day.

3-kw solar PV system at Raniban Retreat, Pokhara, provides 19 kwh of electricity per day

Gham Power is the fastest growing solar company in Nepal, with over 100-kilowatt of installations, including the US Embassy (23 KW- Kathmandu), EVK2- CnR (10 KW- Everest base camp), Maiti Nepal (8 KW-Kathmandu), Bayalpata Hospital (3 KW – Accham) and Raniban retreat (3 KW-Pokhara). The workshop shared these experiences to show how solar PV can be used in commercial scenarios to provide power backup at costs lower than pure diesel generator backup.

Moon Pradhan, sales/marketing director of Gham Power, explains commercial PV systems

Here’s how Avishek Malla, Gham Power’s Engineering Manager, compared solar to diesel generator (DG):

Diesel Generator	Solar Hybrid System
Low Initial Cost	High initial cost (not any more with bank financing)
Operational and Maintenance cost high	Operational cost low
Fuel price high fluctuation	Price of electricity constant
	Payback ~4.5 years

Avishek Malla, Gham Power's Engineering Manager, Describing How Solar Costs Less than Diesel in Long Run

Mr. Malla then described how to integrate solar PV with the NEA line and the existing diesel generator to optimize overall power costs. In such integration, the main priority is given to the utility line from NEA, but when there is no NEA electricity, then the solar electricity is used for powering the load. The existing diesel generator is only used when there is extra load more than the solar PV output.

Integrating solar PV with NEA power and DG electricity to optimize costs

Mr. Malla then introduced the topic of “captive power plant” for businesses with following characteristics:

For facilities with load greater than 30kVA
High energy demand during the day
No initial capital cost, or maintenance and operation costs – businesses only pay for the backup power used from the captive power plant

The workshop participants were interested in learning more about optimization of their existing DG-NEA system. Some participants were also keen to gain more information about the captive power plants for their businesses.

Workshop Attendees Engaged in 1-on-1 Sessions with Gham Power Staff

Stay tuned as we will be doing more of these workshops over time. If you are a business interested in finding out more how you can integrate our commercial solar PV systems with your existing DG, please contact us at contact@ghampower.com, and we will send our engineers for a free energy audit to identify your energy demand, and ways we can optimize your existing power back up system. We will need the following from you to make our audit more accurate and effective:

Energy bills for last 12 months
For your Diesel generator:
- Meter reading corresponding to fuel input
- Maintenance cost

Also, let us know if you are interested in hosting a workshop like this in your city. We can definitely use your help in getting interested people together so we can all engage in a discussion on how to bring power backup costs down by integrating solar