Market Development of PV Solar Home System (SHS) and PV Pumping in Yemen

Ali Mohammed Al-Ashwal

University of La Rioja, Spain

Abstract: The Blockade of Yemen imposed by Coalition Led by Saudi Arabia led to a severe scarcity in fuel which caused the unavailability of electricity produced by fossil fuel-based sources such as diesel-based generation. Therefore, households and other energy consumers looked for all possible ways to get the power supply. Due to the disappearance of fuel, the installation of PV Systems was the best and survival solution. Consequently, rapid diffusion of PV Solar Home Systems (SHS) took place as well as PV Water Pumping. As a result of rapid demand increase, the PV SHS market suddenly emerged and experienced very high growth. Subsequently, most of the traders and even ordinary shops got into the business of selling PV SHS. Before the conflict, PV SHS sales were counted, in best cases, hundreds, now it has jumped up to hundreds of thousands. Thus, a large market for PV SHS was created within a year. Similarly, other energy consumers converted their source of energy into PV, mainly ground water pumping. This paper examines closely this phenomenon by means of market assessment using a pilot site survey that was performed on households, PV SHS dealers and PV Pumping dealers. Further a new approach was proposed to estimate the total installed PV peak power in the country.