[...]Afromusing » Blog Archive » Bottom Up Vs Top Down, a lesson in Solar Implementation from Senegal.[...]…

SinoStar Lighting Group Ltd. specializes in the production of quality Solar lighting in China.
all series of solar related lamps and lighting fixtures

1)220V Energy Saving Lamp & Automobile Halogen Lamp ( http://www.ssinostar.com)
12V/24V DC (5w 7w 9w 11w) Fluorescent Lamp /CCFL is often used as replacement of incandescent lighting,4 times more effective than incandescent lamp.

2)12V/220V LED Lighting : Shape available with MR11, MR16, GU10, PAR16, PAR20, PAR30, PAR38, JDR and multi- colored design. And we can add from 6PCS-LED and up to 198PCS-LED in the LED Cup with optional colors White, Blue, Green, Red and Yellow. Excellent replacement for halogen lamps in background, recreation and other applications.
PAR38 LED198 LED400

3)Solar LED Road Stud:The Solar Road Stud makes active illumination and remains brightly visible, unaffected by wet conditions.

4)Wind turbine and Solar Combined Street Lighting:can make the best use of the wind and solar energy simultaneously. All-in-one design, is a new trend in the markets and replaces the traditional street lighting systems. Best for areas utilizing sunshine and wind reserves.

5)Portable Solar energy System:This series of solar panel capacity ranges from 40Wp to 160Wp that can generate power from 100W to 500W.Application : areas lack of energy, remote homes, solar pumps, fans,TVs,computers,Recreation Vehicle,WIFI hotspot,ship,UPS and so on.220V/110V AC electrical appliances and 12V DC electrical appliances can be adapted to the system.Further it can be a mobile charger for automobile vehicle. And it’s a great energy supplementary when disaster and poor weather appears.

Solar generator system with 400w Wind turbine:

We welcome OEM orders.Feel free to contact us for more info and quotation .

Regards,

Ken
Export dept.

SinoStar Lighting Group Ltd.

This is a management problem, whether top down or bottoms up, bad management is still bad management. In africa, as bad as centrallized management ( lets face it corruption is often the real culprit) seems, it is often far better, faster (even less corrupt) than those village committees.
Centralization allows for learning from experience, specialization, sharing resources and critical mass for creation of market etc

On the practical side, alot of the problem of this venture could be solved by creating an electricity grid ( been waiting for this in my shags) so that the excess power is sold to the grid ( and to urban users) instead of using batteries

PS i haven’t read the actual article (am at work). Let me go read, will come back if my thoughts are wrong

To have capital motivations, the idea of selling their energy to the mill sounds like something that would encourage people to keep up their systems (in the article it appears the mills are still working – they are making money) – that would work for the larger capacity systems that have excess energy though…For the smaller systems Income generating activities from charging stations for cell phones like in uganda, could have been encouraged.

The ability to make money by repairing systems – that would require training more technicians there. Its kind of a catch 22 because it appears that before this initiative people didn’t have power, now they do. That in itself is a great thing, but the danger is that they may not have the power much longer if the systems are not maintained.