Village Power - The Community Charging Station

titowooten said 2 years ago

For more information about this project please contact me at [email protected] or take a look at our website, www.energyforopportunity.org

KUdesign said 2 years ago

Hello, we are students in the 2009/10 Industrial Design class at Kansas University in Lawrence Kansas USA. We are interested in applying socially directed design to make meaningful contributions to solving everyday problems faced by the majority of people in our world today. We are offering our collaboration as design students to contribute to this IDEA and assist in advancing its presentation or implementation in some way. Inspired by the problem statement posted we have ideas and questions we hope can be clarified by collaborative input from those of you who are experts in your field or have lived or observed the condition the IDEA intends to resolve. Here are some of the initial questions we would like some help with:

-What would be the longevity of battery life? (Also, how many volts? and would it be a danger?)

-How heavy are the proposed battery packs including a carrying case? and what would be the greatest distance traveled with the pack?
-We believe that it could be beneficial to place the solar panels and battery packs near other main points of interest in the community such as the school or main water source, would there be any serious repercussions to house them in these locations? what would the negative aspects be?

-What it the local monetary/exchange system? Does it have any unique requirements?

KUdesign said 2 years ago

This is our second post regarding your idea for the Village Power . We compiled some information from your Africa Connect Website. We know you want up to 700w of capacity for the unit and in order to do this a fairly large area of panels would be needed. Our idea is that access to the power station would be accomplished through some direct connections but mostly by a battery exchange system. The charging station would hold many battery packs that would charge during the day and can be swapped out by users when needed. The charging station would have a locking mechanism that would only allow a user to get a new pack after they have returned one. We think the unit should have a standalone structure to house everything so it does not have to rely on a preexisting structure. The charging station would be affixed to a pre existing structure that would allow the panels to be adjusted throughout the day to get the best sunlight. The exchange idea basically came from a concept of a library where you are checking out the battery source to allow extended hours of work, study, and light in general. We are also discussing permanent lighting for pathways and areas around the village.
Community members would be given access to purchasing a battery source that has different connector types for use with charging lamps, powering home lighting or charging devices such as cell phones. The battery pack could be used to charge another device to be used elsewhere. By using lower voltage low amp drawing lighting the system could give power access to many families. A lamp our class looked into that already exists is the Nova. http://dlightdesign.com/product_nova.html This lamp gives light to its users for an extended amount of time into the night to continue productivity. By having our charging station and additional packs activity can be maintained until much later in the night. Another source we found information at was http://www.energyforopportunity.org/projects/development-and-livelihoods... . This organization is attempting to accomplish something very similar to what you are doing.

Our main questions that need addressed:

Is there a certain type of panels you use? Dimensions?
Is the nova light a viable option for what you want for this idea or would any led derived light work?
What voltage panels do you typically use or plan to use? 12v or 18v or something else?
We know that higher voltage panels create less amp draw from the panel.
How heavy and how big are current battery packs that are being used? Also what is the typical capacity?
If we didn’t have a standalone charging station is there be any repercussions to building them into a school or close to a water source?
We figured we would have to have around 7 sq/ft to create 700w of capacity, are we correct?


Relevant Links
http://www.energyforopportunity.org/projects/development-and-livelihoods...
---states the basic purpose ( the why--more eloquently states what we know, would be beneficial for us in our summary statement)

http://www.energyforopportunity.org/about/previous-projects/
---especially take a look at the Liberia project

http://dlightdesign.com/product_kiran.html
---this is the cheap portable lantern, it’s worth taking a look at.

titowooten said 2 years ago

My apologies to the KU Design team for the late reply on this, it has been a very hectic time for us here at Energy For Opportunity. Just to clarify we are the same organisation that you are discussing in your comments...so we are very pleased that our model is being referenced.

To go through all the questions from the two comments:
1) Battery life for the main charging system would be in the three to five year range. We would use GEL batteries as ongoing maintenance can be an issue, even with trained staff. costs will drive the battery selection for the household systems and we can expect a one year lifespan for those batteries. They would be 12V batteries.
2) A small, 10A motorcycle is only a few pounds and will keep 2, 5W light bulbs running for around 12 hours. We also have small car lighter receptacles that can go with this to allow home phone charging. A 50A-hr battery is around 30lbs and is light enough to be carried quite a distance. This can power bigger systems with televisions, dvd players, etc. The longest distance would depend on the village size, but we are looking at smaller communities where this wouldn't be an issue
3) We want to put the systems on a communal building so there is some form of direct community wide benefit. Schools are great, so are community centres. This helps considerably with security.
4) It is the Leone, the challenge is creating a small enough package size(ie how much) and still maintaining some function in the system and revenue for the operator.
5) We like to use larger panels as they are easier to work with. These systems are designed with 175W panels in mind and we have requested sponsorship from module manufacturers.
6) We are familiar with the NOVA light from our participation in the Lighting Africa programme. There are numerous portable lighting products like this all with their advantages and disadvantages. Finding the right one for the community is the challenge.
7) We use 24V nominal or higher panels and use an MPPT controller with step down function to get down to the battery bank voltage. This saves on voltage drop losses from the array. It is also easier to work with series connections on the array side.
8) Yes they do, another help in reducing voltage drop.
9) We are experimenting with batteries ranging from 10A-hr to 50a-hr.
10) I prefer not to use stand alone structure unless there is one dedicated owner. As mentioned we like the idea of some direct communal benefit and using a communal structure gives that and aids with security.
11) You will need around 10m2 or so of roof space. This depends on the spacing and other considerations on the roof. Every roof is different here so it is a bit variable.

Once again sorry for the delayed response. Thank you very much for your interest in the project and the Energy For Opportunity Programme in general. We look forward to collaborating on this further.

crystal_voa4sd said 2 years ago

I like your idea. I would also like to see if there is a way that we could team up and bring more than electric power to the people, but also knowledge. Our Rural Internet Kiosk has a power charging station although it is not as large as the one you are detailing. We could however increase the wattage to meet your requirements. Please take a look at http://www.voicesofafrica.org/ for more information. I look forward to collaborating with you in the future.

Many blessings,

Crystal Kigoni

logon said 2 years ago

A small, 10A motorcycle is only a few pounds and will keep 2, 5W light bulbs running for around 12 hours. We also have small car lighter receptacles that can go with this to allow home phone charging. A 50A-hr battery is around 30lbs and is light enough to be carried quite,<a href="http://www.ciscoccnawireless.com">ccna wireless</a> a distance. This can power bigger systems with televisions, dvd players, etc.