Lighting is essential in refugee camps, particularly for improving the safety and security of women and girls. However, conventional lighting technologies such as incandescent and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) consume more electricity and cause higher environmental impacts. Although the technical advantages of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting are well established, limited research has examined its economic feasibility in refugee camp settings, particularly under different financing arrangements. In addition, the high upfront cost of LEDs remains a major barrier to adoption. To address these gaps, this present study develops a hypothetical refugee camp case study, calibrated using secondary data rather than observed LED adoption data, and examines three implementation scenarios: donor-funded, refugee-funded, and carbon-credit-supported. Key assumptions include daily lighting operation and comparison of the economic performance of LED lighting against CFL. In the donor-funded scenario, the annual electricity cost of LED lighting is 28% lower than CFL, and the simple payback period is 0. 28 years, indicating rapid cost recovery. In environmental terms, LED lighting reduces operational carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by by 83% compared with incandescent lamps and by 28% compared with CFLs. In the refugee-funded scenario, the estimated monthly payment required per household is 0. 68, which appears modest but may still be challenging for households with very constrained budgets. In the carbon-credit scenario, replacing incandescent lamps with LEDs across all households could generate approximately 3. 2 M/year in carbon credit revenue, although this estimate does not account for transaction, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) costs. These findings suggest that while direct refugee payment may be challenging, donor support and carbon-finance mechanisms could provide practical pathways for large-scale LED deployment in refugee camps.
Chowdhury et al. (Mon,) studied this question.