LIFE CYCLE COSTS COMPARISON BETWEEN SOLAR, DIESEL AND GRIDELECTRICITY POWERED SMALL IRRIGATION PUMPS: EVIDENCE FROM NORTHERN BANGLADESH

Abstract

Bangladesh Government has emphasized renewable energy generation and fixed a target to generate at least 150 MW of electricity from solar irrigation pumps (SIPs) by 2020; however, the generation was only about 46.98 MW. This study compared the life cycle costs (LCCs) between small solar, diesel and grid-connected irrigation pumps. The data on solar irrigation pump (SIP), diesel irrigation pump (DIP) and grid-connected irrigation pump (GIP) were collected from Birganj and Badarganj Upazilas of northern Bangladesh. The capital, maintenance, replacement and operational costs were calculated for the pumps. The outcome of annualized life cycle costs (ALCC) reveals that the average cost of the SIP (Tk.36848) is lower than DIP (Tk.105378) but marginally higher than GIP (Tk.34896). The GIP’s ALCC is the lowest, mainly for the subsidy on electric tariffs for irrigation. Therefore, at first, DIPs should be replaced by SIPs. GIPs will be replaced in the future as the price of electricity appears to be increasing. However, a small SIP’s operational cost is almost zero as it runs on solar radiation. In addition, the cost of solar irrigation will continue to fall since the price of PV panels has decreased by 12 times from 2010 to 2020.