American Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Vol. 1, No. 3, 2015, pp. 86-89 http://www.aiscience.org/journal/ajrse * Corresponding author E-mail address: lakshey.sehgal@gmail.com (L. Sehgal), raprasath.get@pondiuni.edu.in (R. A. Prasath), rehaliaarvind@gmail.com (A. Rehalia) Proposal of Integral Mounted Solar Charging and External Solar Charging Station for an Electric Rickshaw in Delhi Lakshey Sehgal 1 , R. Arun Prasath 1 , Arvind Rehalia 2, * 1 Madanjeet School of Green Energy Technologies, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry, India 2 Instrumentation and control department, Bharti Vidyapeeth College of Engineering, New Delhi, India Abstract The paper proposes an economic feasibility study of integral mounted solar charging and external solar charging station for an electric rickshaw which is an already developed and marketable product in metropolitan cities of India. The project reveal that the integral mount solar PV charging system is financially feasible for a place like Delhi and it can be adopted immediately for gaining benefit of extra range and added ridership. The high return on investment and small payback period make this system a highly lucrative option for the consume The off grid charging method is having a long payback period and thus should only be adopted for places where grid reliability is very low and thus it can act as a good backup system for the running of domestic appliances as well as the EV. Keywords Grid, Solar Energy, Renewable Energy Received: June 4, 2015 / Accepted: June 20, 2015 / Published online: July 16, 2015 @ 2015 The Authors. Published by American Institute of Science. This Open Access article is under the CC BY-NC license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 1 Introduction Today electric vehicle are being used for last mile connectivity as a means of public transportation in many metropolitan cities in India. Electric vehicle used for our study is an electric rickshaw which is powered by a small 850 W brush less direct current controlled by an electronic controller. The energy to run these vehicles is taken from the grid to charge the batteries which are generally a series of valve regulated lead acid gel batteries or lead acid batteries of 90 Ah capacities. At present, India is highly dependent on nonrenewable resources for its energy requirements. Thus, the electric vehicles would not entirely benefit until and unless they use renewable source of energy to power the battery bank. It is very clear that relying on nonrenewable sources of energy like crude oil is not only hampering our health (DPCC, 2014) and our environment but also causing a huge dent on our economy (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implimentation, 2013). 2. Solar Electric Vehicle Electric vehicle (EV) used in the project is an electric rickshaw, used for short distances up to 5-15 kms which help in connecting interiors of the city with nearest metro-station and bus stands. It is a battery operated vehicle which uses a brushless direct current motor (BLDC) which is controlled by a controller of 35 Amp rating. Battery used to run these rickshaws are either sealed valve regulated lead acid (VRLA)sw batteries of 90 Ah rating or 90 Ah lead acid (LA) batteries. The rickshaw has the following main component – brushless DC motor of 850 W capacity, motor controller of rating 35 A, four 90 Ah VRLA gel batteries connected in series, a throttle controller, a reverse and forward switching