Reducing the cost of solar home system using the data from data logger

Installation of small low cost Solar Home Systems are on the rise in remote off-grid rural areas of Bangladesh. Initial investment of this units is prohibitively high for poor population of the concerned areas. The major cost of each Solar Home System is the battery used for energy storage for the use of electricity during night time. Study reported in this paper indicates that resizing the storage battery in a stand-alone Solar Home System by using the in-situ solar radiation data of a year will reduce the cost. Significant cost savings will result from the resizing of the storage battery from 55 Ah to 30 Ah of each stand-alone Solar Home System being installed in off-grid rural areas of Bangladesh.