Sustainable Cities and Society 1 (2011) 135141

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Sustainable Cities and Society

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Studies on installing solar water pumps in domestic urban sector

K. Padmavathi, S. Arul Daniel
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620015, T.N., India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Per capita energy consumption is high in urban locations of any country. In this context, this article explores the deployment of standalone photovoltaic (PV) water pumping units in every household of a sustainable city. The various photovoltaic water pumping schemes and the domestic pumping requirements of a city in India are given in this paper. The peak shaving of load and reduction in line losses due to PV pump deployment on a secondary distribution transformer in a residential locality of the same city is investigated to bring out the advantages of the above policy initiative. The need for a legislation to install PV water pumps is thus brought out in this paper. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 21 April 2011 Received in revised form 14 June 2011 Accepted 15 June 2011 Keywords: Urbanization Renewable sources House hold Solar water pump Load ow Distribution transformer

1. Introduction 1.1. Back ground In certain countries like India, centralized water supply by a water supply company is only during certain hours of the day and pressure is generally insufcient. Residents store water from the central supply in a local sump and is pumped to an overhead tank (roof top storage tanks) for consumption. Apart from the central water supply, households or a colony like apartment have independent ground water wells from which water is to be lifted for consumption. Hence, in residential areas, when either ground water or central water supply along with ground water is consumed, there is a need for pumping water to overhead tanks. In India, the present scenario has water pumps in every household of a city; that are driven by electric motors connected to the utility network. In many industrialised countries cold water supply is continuous and is directly fed from water mains. In case the water supply pressure is insufcient, then booster pumps are used to increase water pressure. A pressure booster system consists of a pressure tank and a one line jet pump. The pressure tank is generally placed in the ground oor and it feeds water at pump boosted pressure to the house faucets. The pump will draw more water from the water mains and feed it to the pressure tank as water is consumed

Corresponding author. Fax: +91 0431 2500133. E-mail addresses: kpeesame@yahoo.co.in (K. Padmavathi), daniel@nitt.edu (S.A. Daniel). 2210-6707/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.scs.2011.06.002

in the houses. These pumps need not lift water deep in the ground to high level in the buildings. A second booster pump, when used to improve water pressure in the upper part of the building is then placed in the upper oors of the building. The booster pumps come with pressure switches, with cut in and cut off pressure settings. Multi story apartments and very tall buildings called sky scrapers are most likely to install a roof top water supply tank which is fed by a pump from street level. Per capita energy consumption is high in urban locations of any country. Urban growth rate in a developing country like India is high and is projected to continue for another 3040 years. Fossil fuels are getting depleted at a faster rate. Another challenge is to face the climatic changes the world is undergoing. Urban society should adapt itself to utilise alternate energy resources available in the surroundings. Solar photovoltaic energy is accepted as the most reliable and cleanest source of alternate energy. In along the sun solar water pumps, energy is stored indirectly in a tank, in the form of water at high elevation. This form of storage is more economical than battery storage. In this context, this paper proposes a policy initiative on deployment of domestic solar water pumps in all the households of a city. Israel today, is the world leader in the use of solar energy per capita with 85% of the households using solar thermal systems. This is the result of Israeli Knesset passing a law in 1980, requiring the installation of solar water heaters in all houses. In 2005 Spain became the rst country in the world to require the installation of PV electricity in larger buildings and the second after Israel to require installation of solar heating systems in 2006. In Germany building regulations give credit for solar thermal systems but are silent about solar PV installations. In UK new building regulations

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Fig. 1. PV pumping with AC motor (f* = frequency).

aim at reducing the carbon emission of new UK houses to zero by 2016. This includes code for sustainable homes, which may require the use of solar thermal and PV installations. In India, use of solar water heaters in residential buildings is made mandatory in many states through an amendment of building bye-laws (CTRAN report). As a result, there is a steep rise in the installation of solar water heaters. Solar lights with rechargeable batteries are also in widespread use. Wijaya, Fathoni, Pranayudha, Prakoso, and Suryani (2009) have worked on electricity saving through application of solar water pumps in domestic and commercial sector and have shown reduced dependency of these sectors on national grid of JavaMaduraBali (Jamali) in Indonesia. However, there is no detailed study available in the existing literature on the impact of employing photovoltaic water pumps in every household of a city. In this context, the paper presents a model of analysis, taking distribution transformer data, load curve, distribution network parameters and such a study has been attempted for the rst time in this article.

in the premises of the private households of cities in place of water pumps driven by electricity drawn from the utility network. The size of the PV panel is designed for pumping the water through out the day to ll the overhead tank. An optimization algorithm is sufcient to nd the optimum size of the PV panel for such an application and is not dealt in this paper. In order to bring out the positive features of installing PV water pumps in city households, power ow analysis after the removal of water pumps driven by electricity drawn from utility network is carried out and the results presented. 2. PV water pumps 2.1. PV pump schemes In PV water pumping, the pumping set-up consists of a centrifugal pump or volumetric pump driven by an AC motor or a DC motor. The electrical output of the PV array is converted into AC using an inverter whose frequency is variable to drive an AC motor as shown in Fig. 1. In case of a DC motor driven pump, the PV electrical output is either directly coupled or fed through a DCDC converter as shown in Figs. 2 and 3 respectively. Utilization of available PV power is least in direct coupling. In solar water pumping, efciency of a DC motor coupled to a positive displacement pump with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is shown to be higher than an induction motor driving the same pump with MPPT (Lujara, VanWyk, & Materu, 1999). Centrifugal pumps are suitable for high ow rates. They lose their efciency in PV water pumping at low sun conditions. Positive displacement pumps have higher efciency. They are used in solar applications in the power range of 500 W or less. 2.2. PV pump components 2.2.1. PV module India has a well organised PV module manufacture industry which has come of age in the last two to three years. India, with its advantages of lower labour costs, offers domestic opportunities

1.2. Proposed policy initiative There is an ever increasing demand for harnessing every possible resource to meet the per capita energy consumption requirements of a country. In addition to augmenting renewable resources to meet energy needs, there is a continuous emphasis on demand side management. All these initiatives are carried out to postpone capital investment in the electric distribution network, due to a continuous increase in power consumption. Government of India has announced a huge program on solar energy, JNNSM-2009 (Mission Document, www.mnre.gov.in). This program is aimed at wide scale deployment of solar farms, roof top generation and rural electrication. There is a need for well developed Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Network to evacuate power generated by solar farms located in remote areas. On the other hand, roof top photovoltaic generation can be a feasible substitute for utilising solar energy for meeting growing urban power demand and attain sustainability in the future. Urbanization has signicant implications on urban energy demand. Today, developing countries like India show an average degree of urbanization that developed countries were experiencing in the early part of 20th century. City planners in developed countries face challenges with regard to increasing urban energy consumption. The major share of energy consumed in urban areas is the energy consumed in residential and commercial buildings (Madlener & Sunak, 2011). As a matter of fact, the most sought after form of energy is electrical energy since it is pollution free at the utilization stage and has excellent transportability. Thus, policies regarding energy efcient measures and deployment of renewable energy sources are the need of the day. In this background, the paper attempts to employ photovoltaic panels for pumping water in every household of a city. A policy initiative proposed in this paper is to install small solar water pumps

Fig. 2. PV pumping with direct coupling.

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Fig. 3. PV pumping with DCDC converter.

160 150 140 130 120 110

Power in kW

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Time in Hours
Fig. 4. Daily load curve of distribution transformer.

to manufacture economical, yet high quality PV modules and cells. The module production capacity rose from 60 MW in 2005 to 1 GW in 2009 setting India as a major manufacturing hub in the global PV market (Frost and Sullivan Report). Cost of PV modules for use in the domestic sector is decreasing with increased local production capability. 2.2.2. PV water pump PV water pumps fall into two categories. The so called rst generation PV pumping scheme consists of a centrifugal pump driven by an AC motor. The frequency of the inverter output is made to vary by MPPT algorithm which tracks maximum power of the PV module with changing atmospheric conditions. Thus, available maximum power is fed to the motor. This scheme has proven long term reliability and the hydraulic efciency is of the order of 2530%. The second generation PV pumps consist of a volumetric pump or a positive displacement pump preferably driven by a DC motor. These pumps are characterised by low PV power outputs of 100500 Wp and higher hydraulic efciencies of the order of 70% (Protogeropoulos & Pearce, 2000).

At present, many small solar water pumps are available in the international market. Some of the DC motor pumps are designed for a voltage of 12 V and power as less as 35 W (www.altestore.com). They operate with a reduced capacity during low sunshine periods. They cost around $200600 depending on their head-ow capability. In many developed countries, solar pumps are used in domestic sector on a small scale. India is experiencing a paradigm shift to stand alone PV water pumping systems in the farming sector. DC oating pump manufactured by Polyene group has found acceptance among small farmers in the southern states of India as established by various studies (Surender & Subbaraman, 2003) However, in India domestic pump market is dominated by centrifugal pumps coupled to AC/DC motor with a relatively large voltage rating which require more PV modules to be connected in series. Hence, DC motor pumps with a small voltage rating of 12 V and starting power as less as 35 W are to be manufactured locally for the proposed implementation of along the sun water pumps in the domestic sector. 3. Site of study 3.1. Power consumption

Table 1 Power load during 20072012. Year 20072008 20082009 20092010 20102011 20112012
a

Energy consumption (MU)a 11,374 13,142 14,791 16,486 18,465

Maximum demand (MW) 2582 2891 3238 3627 4015

Mega unit 1 unit = 1 kWh.

Bangalore a city in south India is selected for investigations on the impact of the above policy initiative for a sustainable city. Bangalore has been substantially affected by globalization and urbanization over the last decade. While the city is internationally recognised for information technology, the city also has a diverse set of activities from silk to aeronautics. According to population census report in the year 2001, 45% growth in citys population is because of migration due to employment opportunities. Population

138 Table 2 Domestic pumping needs. Head (m) 6.1 9.5 70 92 185 Pumped from Sump Sump Open well Bore well Bore well

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Building GF FF FF SF SF

Daily water (l) 8001200 16002500 16002500 20,000 20,000

Depth of storage Sump Open well Bore well 12.5 m 1235 m 70350 m

Source: Bangalore Water Supply Board. GF: ground oor 34 m; FF: rst oor 67 m; SF: second oor 910 m.

of the city is anticipated to be 9.9 million by 2021. Studies indicated that the power load growth of Bangalore urban area is at the rate of 9.93% annually, but the actual load growth is 16%. The load forecast of the city as indicated in the 11th ve year plan for the period 20072012 is indicated in Table 1 (Report, Bangalore Development Authority). 3.2. Pumping needs In Bangalore, residents pump water from a bore well or an open well or from a sump fed from central supply. Water is pumped by drawing electricity from a secondary distribution network. Generally, the contrivance used for water transfer consists of an induction motor and a centrifugal pump. The rating of the pump varies as the need. They range from few tens of watts to 3.5 kW as the case may be. These pumps are operated for 1 or 2 h depending on the pumping head and volume of water needed. Taking the case of Bangalore city, per capita consumption of water is 200 l/day. In Table 2, a few examples of typical values of pumping head and desired volume of water in different types of buildings are indicated. The data in Table 2 are the parameters required for designing a PV water pump. 4. Distribution transformer data analysis The Bangalore electricity supply company (BESCOM) has 1, 38,618 distribution transformers (BESCOM Annual report 2010) covering supply for eight districts. The rating of the transformer depends upon the concentration of load at a given location and they range from 2 kVA to1000 kVA. A distribution transformer in a residential locality is taken for study in this article. The details of the transformer are as follows: Transformer: TC 86; location: South Bangalore. Rating: 250 kVA, 11 kV/415 V, 50 Hz, 3 phase, distribution transformer. Total number of poles = 82. Total number of consumers = 386. Total connected load = 782 kW. Data set gives details regarding category of consumer, pole from which he is served and connected load or sanctioned load of individual consumers. The diagram of the distribution transformer network shows connection from the transformer to the poles and pole to pole, type of conductor used and the distance in meters. Power supplied through distribution transformer is collected once in 30 min, continuously using Electronic Tri-vector Meter (ETVM). The ETVM meter constant is 80. The readings are recorded over a period of one month at 30 min interval. The average value of the power corresponding to each time interval over the entire day (0:0023:30 h) is calculated using the readings for 31 days downloaded from the meter. The average daily variation of the load on the distribution transformer so obtained is used in this work. The plot of average variation of power with time of the day is shown in Fig. 4.

Peaking of the load curve is observed in the morning as well as in the evening hours. It is seen from the graph that maximum peaking takes place in the morning hours between 6.00 am and 8.30 am. One of the reasons for peaking during morning hours is the use of electricity for pumping water to an overhead tank in every domestic consumer premises.

5. Investigations on policy impact The distribution transformer under study is in a residential locality. It is found that 216 domestic consumers are having a connected load of 2 kW and above. A large number of them are having 3 kW which is the typical connected load of one house hold. The domestic consumers, with 2 kW and more connected load, have a motorpump to ll their overhead tanks. It is a common practice in the city that water-pumps are switched on in the morning hours. This coincides with the peaking on the transformer. These motor pumps for use in houses, are generally 0.37 kW and are operated for about an hour or less. These 0.37 kW motor pumps are commonly used for a vertical lift of 15 m. The following investigations are carried out by replacing the 0.37 kW AC motor pumps by solar DC pumps. 5.1. Impact on peak shaving It is observed from the graph in Fig. 4 that maximum peaking takes place in morning hours between 6.00 am and 8.30 am. With the use of solar water pumps, motor load for pumping water gets eliminated from the grid supply. It is estimated that out of 216 domestic consumers, if 150 (70%) of them operate their pumps from PV panels, a net reduction of 55.5 kW of total connected load on the transformer is observed. Similarly, if the remaining 66 (30%) pumps, which are generally switched on at night between 7.30 pm and 10 pm, also employ solar water pumps, a further reduction of 24.42 kW in connected load is observed. The resulting load on the distribution transformer during peak load hours is shown in Table 3. Plot of power in kW and time in hours (0:3023:30 h) is shown in Fig. 5. Peak load reduction with solar pumps in operation is observed from the graph. 5.2. Impact on line losses The network of load on the secondary side of the local distribution transformer is very complicated with many poles spread in many streets and inter-connected with other poles. The consumer load is connected to the nearest pole via service mains. The distribution transformer diagram of T-86 is shown in Fig. 6 (service mains not shown). It is a single line diagram showing electrical connection between poles, distance and total connected load on each pole. In this secondary distribution network, three different types of conductors namely rabbit, squirrel and weasel are used. The resistance and reactance of these conductors per kilo meter length of the wire are listed in Table 4.

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160

139

140

P in kW (without SWP)

P in kW (with SWP)

120

Power in kW

100

80

60

40

20

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Time in Hours
Fig. 5. Load curve of the transformer showing peak reduction.

Table 3 Load on distribution transformer during peak hours. Time (h) 6:00 P in kW without solar pumps P in kW With solar pumps 78.88 69.63 Time (h) 19:30 P in kW without Solar pumps P in kW With solar pumps 100.26 96.20 20:00 100.38 96.317 20:30 100.55 96.48 21:00 98.52 94.45 21:30 96.72 92.65 22:00 91.28 87.21 6:30 107.39 98.147 7:00 130.94 121.69 7:30 135.62 126.37 8:00 133.01 123.76 8:30 121.30 112.05

Power ow program (Load ow program) is a computer tool to analyse steady state behaviour of any electrical power system. It can be schematically represented as shown in Fig. 7. The radial network connected to the distribution transformer as shown in Fig. 6 can be modelled for power ow study as given by Eq. (1). Power supplied by the transformer or total load on the distribution transformer is equivalent to generated power (Ps , kW).
n m

Ps =
i=1

PLoad i +
j=1

PLoss j

(1)

power ow analysis results. The summary of power ow analysis results is shown in Table 5. It is observed from Table 5 that saving in line losses is nearly 3 kWh/day for a single distribution transformer network. There will be similar reduction in the line losses of all other distribution transformers in the city with the use of solar water pumps. Thus, the use of solar water pumps in domestic applications will lead to energy savings, reduced peak power, reduced losses and hence improved efciency of Transmission and Distribution of electrical energy. 6. Sustainability of solar water pumping Mahjoubi, Mechlouch, and Brahim (2010) have shown that cost per m3 of PV water pumping is lower than that of water pumping employing diesel generator, in the desert of Tunisia using life cycle cost (LCC) method. Many other researchers have shown economic viability of PV water pumping systems over other pumping systems
Table 4 Resistance and reactance of conductors. Type of wire Rabbit Weasel Squirrel Source: BESCOM. R ( /km) 0.606 1.014 1.531 X ( /km) 0.369 0.379 0.389

where PLoad i = power served to the ith consumer load (kW), PLoss j = I2 R loss in the jth overhead line (kW), n = total number of domestic consumer loads, and m = total number of over head lines. Power ow analysis (Load ow analysis) is carried out for this system using Mi-Power software (Macmet, PRDC, http://www.prdcinfotech.com) MiPower manual power ow study can be conducted for different system conditions such as peak load, average load or any particular load demand occurring at a given time. The power ow program is executed by setting the power supply schedule equal to the power sent out through the distribution transformer at different time intervals of the day as listed in Table 3. This power includes the total consumer load served and the line losses occurring at that time interval. The power ow is obtained for the two cases with and without solar pumps. The distribution line losses and the resulting saving in line losses is thus found from the

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Fig. 6. Single line diagram.

Net work Parameters Supply Schedule Load schedule

Power flow program

Voltage at nodes Power served to load (kW or Mw) Power Loss in transmission lines (kW or Mw)

Fig. 7. Block model of power ow study.

Table 5 Summary of load ow results in kWh. Sl. no. Time of the day Without solar pumps Supply (kWh) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total 6.00 6.30 7.00 7.30 8.00 8.30 19.30 20.00 20.30 21.00 21.30 22.00 39.45 53.88 65.53 67.71 66.62 60.84 50.09 50.17 50.17 49.47 48.42 45.62 647.97 Load (kWh) 35.74 49.05 59.54 61.48 60.51 55.34 45.58 45.66 45.66 45.02 44.05 41.47 589.10 Loss (kWh) 3.76 4.89 6.06 6.31 6.19 5.56 4.55 4.56 4.56 4.50 4.42 4.19 59.55 With solar pumps Supply (kWh) 34.8 49.04 60.91 63.1 61.88 56.41 48.11 48.11 48.36 47.31 46.32 43.76 608.11 Load (kWh) 31.5 44.6 55.22 57.14 56.06 51.22 43.75 43.75 43.99 43.03 42.13 39.79 552.16 Loss (kWh) 3.34 4.50 5.78 6.04 5.89 5.26 4.41 4.41 4.43 4.34 4.25 4.02 56.67

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which consumes diesel or gasoline using the life cycle cost method. Odeh, Yohanis, and Norton (2006) have conducted an economic study on PV water pumping systems, considering fuel cost, labour cost, component prices, market interest rate and solar irradiation all of which vary with time and place of application. They have found that solar water pumps are economically viable than diesel pumps for hydraulic energy below 5750 m4 /day (litre-meter product) and 11 kWp system size and 21.6 MJ/m2 -day. In an urban setting people use diesel generator for back up during power cuts. In this article, power ow study on a single distribution transformer network (with about 216 domestic consumers having an electric water pump of rating 0.37 kW) shows a saving in grid electricity of 40 kWh/day on account of using solar water pumps. This results in 68 kWh of saving in energy per consumer per year. Hence, a saving in electricity bill of $12 (US)/year per consumer is obtained at the present cost of $0.17 (US)/kWh of electricity. From the viewpoint of demand side management also, use of solar water pumps by domestic consumers reduces the demand for electrical energy by 14,600 kWh/year per distribution transformer. On the supply side, demand reduction on grid electricity gives rise to saving in installed capacity and hence associated green house gases emission will come down. Other advantages of PV water pumps include simple, reliable, easy to install, unmanned operation and do not liberate any pollutant while producing electricity using solar energy. Solar PV systems have low life cycle cost of pollution compared to other technologies as regards to pollutants released at the time of their manufacture. In their production, toxic materials are used which require careful handling and following of safety and environmental protection rules as documented in IPCC (2010). More than 80% of bulk material used in PV panels is re usable. Recycling of PV panels is already economically viable (http://www.ClimateTechWiki.org). Thus use of solar PV systems is benecial to the society in many ways. 7. Conclusion A detailed study has been carried out to bring out the signicance of installing solar water pumps in every household of major cities. A case study of Bangalore city is taken. Solar irradiation data is superimposed on the pumping characteristics and it has been found that PV panels ranging from 60 Wp to 500 Wp are sufcient in residential buildings of Bangalore city, for lling the overhead tanks on along the sun basis. Furthermore, such installations are

found to reduce signicantly the peak load and bring down the distribution line losses. Government policies and regulations are required to promote the use of PV water pumps in urban domestic sector. Acknowledgements 1. Mr. Rakesha Hegde (rakesh@prdcinfotech.com), PRDC Ltd., Bangalore has kindly provided data of distribution transformer and suggestions in formulating the data base. 2. Dr. Ravishankar Deekshit (ravi yedatore@rediffmail.com), who specialises in power systems has spared his valuable time in reading this article. We thank him for his advice. References
Lujara, N. K., VanWyk, J. D., & Materu, P. N. (1999). Loss models of photovoltaic pumping systems. doi:10.1109/AFRCON.1999.821902. Madlener, R., & Sunak, Y. (2011). Impacts of urbanization on urban structures and energy demand: What can we learn for urban energy planning and urbanization management? Sustainable Cities and Society, 1, 4553. Mahjoubi, A., Mechlouch, R. F., & Brahim, A. B. (2010, November 57). Economic viability of photovoltaic water pumping systems in deserts of Tunisia. In IREC2010 Tunisia, Odeh, I., Yohanis, Y. G., & Norton, B. (2006). Economic viability of photovoltaic water pumping systems. Solar Energy, 80, 850860. Mi Power Manual on Load ow analysis. PRDC Ltd.: Bangalore. Protogeropoulos, C., & Pearce, S. (2000). Laboratory evaluation and system sizing charts for a second generation direct PV powered, low cost submersible solar pump. Journal of Solar Energy, 68, 453474. Surender, T. S., & Subbaraman, S. V. V. (2003). Solar water pumping has come of age in India. doi:10.1109/PVSC.2002.1190891. Wijaya, M. E., Fathoni, A. M., Pranayudha, A., Prakoso, A. B., & Suryani, D. (2009, September 2326). Electricity saving in the household and commercial sectors through solar water pump application. In Proceedings of international symposium on sustainable energy and environmental protection (ISSEEP) Indonesia,

Web references
Annual report BESCOM. (2010). BDA Master Plan 2015. Karnataka, India: Bangalore Development Authority. www.bdabangalore.net CTRAN Consulting Pvt. Ltd. (2010). Building sector policies and regulation for promotion of solar water heating system. A report submitted to Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Govt. of India. Frost and Sullivan Report. <www.solarIndiaOnline.com> 22.03.11. Internet resources Solar Water Pumps (Ref.: IPCC2010 report). <http://www.ClimateTechWiki.org> 7.06.11. Urban MNRE and Report on National Solar Mission-2009, under Government of India. <www.mnre.gov.in> 18.03.11.