Indonesian effort to better quality of Solar Home System

In Indonesia, the use of photovoltaic small lighting system, so called Solar Home System (SHS) is growing rapidly. Almost 50000 units have been installed all over the country, mostly in the eastern part of Indonesia. To protect the users, and the technology as well, the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), supported by The World Bank established the Photovoltaic Component Test Laboratory that has been accredited by ISO guide 25 (currently processed to have ISO 17025 accreditation) and launched 4 National Standards (SNI) on the Component of the SHS, namely: (1) SNI no 04-6391-2000, Battery Charge Regulator (BCR)-Test Procedure and electric requirements; (2) SNI no 04-6392-2000, Battery for PV System, General Requirement and test methods; (3) SNI no 04-6393-2000, System fluorescent lamps for the SHS, Requirement and Test Performance; and (4) SNI no 04-6394-2000, the procedures for the classification of SHS, General Requirements. This paper presents the result of the evaluation on the SHS installed in the field by using SNI number 04-6394-2000 described above, in order to see the performance on short term and long term basis. The short-term evaluation mode has an objective to get the classification criteria of SHS, in order to reveal the real capacity of the system in producing energy in the specified location. While the long term evaluation mode is intended to obtain more clearly a description of the qualitative performance of both system and components.