ABSTRACT
This chapter determines the economically competitive ranges of photovoltaic (pv) relative to handpumps for supplying water to rural communities as a function of water source depth, village size, solar energy resource, level of service, cost and performance characteristics. Village characteristics and people's behaviour are needed to estimate the amount of time that a villager is willing to spend gathering water. Water-gathering time has three components: time spent walking to and from the water point, queueing time, and water collection time. The water collection time is a function of the water delivery rate of the standpipe and handpump. Village characteristics, information on system technology and costs were surveyed to approximate as close as possible situations prevailing in a typical 'up-country' village in Thailand where handpumps are commonly introduced by government ministries. Suction-type handpumps are used for shallow wells of less than 7 m suction head while force-type handpumps were used for deep-well applications.
