| Abstract | Only 47% of the populations in Bangladesh have access to electricity and the present peak hour power shortage is more than 20% of the generation capacity. The government has the policy and vision to supply electricity to all citizens by 2020. Decentralized electricity generation by renewable energy can help the country to fulfill its Vision 2020. Around 1.3 million solar home systems have been installed in Bangladesh, as of February 2012. In recent years, PV micro utility (PV MU) has become popular in the rural market places of Bangladesh. Till now, Grameen Shakti has installed about 10,000 PV MU systems in the country. This study was aimed at the technical and economical evaluation of PV MU systems installed in Bangladesh. The impacts of PV MU systems on the users were also investigated. The study was conducted by a survey of 35 systems, discussion with all stake holders and carrying out experiments. The most common system was 50 Wp. The results show that systems were operating efficiently and individual components of the systems also show good performance. The average overall efficiency of PV MU systems was 5.42%. The design energy output of 40, 50, 60-65, 80 and 85 Wp systems were 84,112,140,196 and 224 Wh/day respectively. Calculation of energy outputs by using RETScreen software were found similar to these designs. Actual energy used by the users was also very close to the designs. The degradation of panel performances was not significant with age. The performance of battery, charge controller, lamp and lamp circuit were also investigated and found to be good. There was a shortage of quality lamp in the local market for solar PV applications. These systems have simple payback period of around 4-6 years. The NPV of systems varied from 27,000 BDT to 144,000 BDT. The levelized electricity cost of PV MU systems is 70 BDT (~0.86 $)/kWh in Bangladesh. The owner has to spend only 7.50BDT/day but can earn at least 30-40 BDT per day, and up to 130-200 BDT/day. The average CO2emission reduction from 40, 50, 60-65 and 80-85 systems were around 440, 583,716 and 985 kg /year. The10,000 PV MU systems in Bangladesh help to mitigate 6.176 ton CO2per year. Five point Linkeart scale was used to ascertain the user acceptance of the PV MU system. Users were mostly pleased about the PV MU systems and were happy to obtain 700 lumens from PV lamps in place of 76 lumens of kerosene wick lamps. They were also highly satisfied about the reduction of fuel consumption and reduced environmental impact, tenure of power supply, systems reliability and safety of the systems. However, users near the electricity grid showed little dissatisfaction about the amount of power supplied by the system. Users agreed that their access to the information, amount of sales and working opportunity increased after installing PV MU system. It also provided them very easy communication with their customers and suppliers, and increased their comfort. It is recommended that Bangladesh government should assist to produce all the PV equipments including PV panel locally within the country to help flourish PV micro utility. |