Solar traffic lights in Capetown + Other news bits

Posted on October 6, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

Via Carbon Copy
Capetown is using solar powered traffic lights to buttress it from expected power cuts. As Rory points out, its a great start to making solar power more commonplace. I would love to see pictures of the traffic lights…this is a blatant hint to our South African friends at WebAddicts. Implementation of solar tech such as this makes so much sense, here’s hoping more countries see the example and follow suit. Just imagine a whole street in (_______insert African country of your choice) with solar powered streetlights. Warms your heart yeah?

In case you have not heard, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala has been appointed as managing director of the world bank! For brevity’s sake, i will just say that her appointment is laudable, in part because it signals a new direction for the world bank and how it views developing countries. Please watch the talk she gave at TED Global in Arusha to see how she tied together the issues of aid, trade and African self-determinism. I hope she will be given a chance to reshape the terms of world bank’s relationship to the developing world in a way that is beneficial to Africa, and continues to shape Africa’s next chapter “A healthy, smiling, beautiful Africa”.

Speaking of the world bank and its policies in Africa, according to the Guardian, the world bank is accused of razing congo forests, thereby endangering the pygmies. I feel a bit bad using the word pygmy, because they have names that I would much rather use such as ‘The Lega’. Several years ago i went to the Nelson Atkins museum in Kansas city for an exhibition named ‘The Art of the Lega’. It was an eye opener for me because the explanations for the pieces gave me a glimpse into their society. One of the tenets i remember was the idea of peace as a fabric of society; the Lega people have a pacifist culture which was expressed in the way they chose to fashion tools – with smooth edges, eschewing sharp points. Since that exhibition and when reading stories about the Congo war and its adverse effects on the people there, I wonder if we need to rethink how we address a community that we know little about other than their stature. Stepping back to the story about the world bank making recommendations to the DRC govt about industrial logging being beneficial to the DRC, did anyone listen to the local community about how best the forest can be used to truly benefit people?

For more on Art of the Lega, the companion book to the exhibition is available on Amazon.

Wind Energy Resources & RE News Tidbits

Posted on August 15, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

Via Leonardo Energy,
The Wind Turbine buyers guide [PDF]: “The article discusses small wind system components, wind turbine basics, and understanding the ratings. It also shows photos of the small wind turbines and lists several specifications for each.”

Via AfriWea
GVEP International receives a 2 million pound grant for a project in East Africa. GVEP’s role is, according to their site

… providing financial support, capacity building and technical assistance to energy SMEs in developing countries. Using funding from the Russian Government, GVEP intends to set up two Regional Funds in West and East Africa to build local energy supply chains and grow economic development from the bottom up.

The list of other organizations in Africa receiving grants from Europe aid can be found here. [PDF]. Some of the organizations in Kenya on the list include:
Kenya Arid Land Development Focus – Renewable energy in Wajir
Kenya Tana and Athi rivers Development Authority – Community based mini hydropower development in upper tana river basin
Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) – Up scaling the smaller biogas Plants

Via BBC
“The Greek Orthodox Church in Cyprus has announced plans to invest $234m (£115m) in solar energy. Archbishop Chrysostomos II said the church would build a factory that would make photo-voltaic panels to capture the sun’s energy.” – Now that is a faith based initiative i could get behind.

Fun from The Daily show with Jon Stewart: An awesome lampoon of the Cape Wind project in Nantucket. Big wigs don’t want it because it will presumably ruin their long range view from their mansions.

Innovative Ideas in Solar Tech

Posted on August 6, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

There are two interesting developments in solar technology I came across awhile ago: The first is a portable solar tracker called Portasol.

The cool thing about this one is that the mechanism for tracking the sun (just like a sunflower would) does not require any power per se. It is thermo-hydraulically powered; click here for Engadget’s explanation of how it works..
Via Make

The second development is not a solid product yet, but researchers from Georgia Tech have designed a solar cell that can generate electricity when light hits the side of the cell, thus increasing efficiency because it still works well in the morning and afternoon when the sun is not hitting the cell directly from the top.

“It may be intuitive: when the light goes straight down, the only interaction is with the tops of towers and the ‘streets’ below,” says Jud Ready, senior research engineer at the institute’s Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory. “But at an angle, the light has an opportunity to reflect off the sides of the towers.” When the sun is at a 90-degree angle, the prototype delivers only 3.5 percent efficiency. But it delivers better efficiencies at many other angles and is actually at its peak efficiency–7 percent–when light comes in at a 45-degree angle. That means the device operates at relatively high efficiencies during much of the day and has two efficiency peaks: one before noon, and one after noon.

While those efficiencies are too low for commercialization, Ready is working on optimizing the size and spacing of his towers as well as their chemical composition.

An added bonus link (Not solar related but cool nonetheless) – Ethan Z on Incremental Ideas, and his piece in the Boston Globe is a must read.

Clean Drinking Water Pumped by Wind Energy!

Posted on July 25, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

This installation in Chifiri, in North Eastern province Kenya is an example of how wind and solar installations can be used to provide the needs of marginalized communities in arid and semi-arid areas.

Simon Mwacharo, TEDGlobal speaker and renewable energy innovator has written about it in wonderful detail and provided pictures. Read more about it here.

The turbine also provides some power to the nearby manyattas (traditional samburu huts), Simon noticed a Japanese guy camped out near the turbine. That was the only place he could charge his laptop and phone!

Do note that next week, the TEDGlobal talks will premiere on Ted.com. Subscribe in itunes by searching for tedtalks and also check the TED blog for a series of posts from bloggers who attended the conference. A piece i wrote is is alread posted on the TED blog, Like Emily said ‘This is the bloggers story to tell’, because there wasn’t as much coverage of it in the mainstream news. I hope you enjoy the talks.

Solar tech in the medical field – Salam cardiac surgery center sudan etc.

Posted on July 18, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

While at TEDGlobal I met Manuel Toscano, a gentleman who works for Emergency USA. We talked shortly about solar power being a great technology for use in remote areas. He filled me in on a hospital that was designed using the following guiding principles.
-The idea of a “hollow” space and a pavilion-based system;
-The choice of the best possible technology given the context;
-The search for an ethical language for this type of architecture.

The choice of solar power for a hospital in an oil rich country might seem a bit ironic, but there is more to this. The specific details of how the energy produced by the panels is used is particularly interesting.

Solar panel: free healthcare, free energy
The average temperature in the Sudan is 29°C, and in the hottest months it can reach 45°C. In order to cool down the hospital, a number of measures were taken during construction. In addition to this, air conditioners were installed after the building was constructed. In the first case, a series of insulating techniques were used. The external walls for example are 58 cm thick and contain an insulating cavity that prevents the building from heating up. The use of traditional cooling systems would have implied high levels of electrical energy or fossil fuel consumption (the needs in terms of volumes of air to be cooled down are hefty: 28,000 m3). In a country rich in oil resources, EMERGENCY has sought out alternative sources of clean energy: the sun. Nine containers left Italy for Khartoum with 300 solar panels, bringing to the country an almost unknown technology, and one that is very seldom used in Europe. Today a plant that contains 288 solar collecting items (for an equivalent of 900 m2, or the area of 10 houses) produces 3,600 KW- as much as burning 355 kg of gas �?? without producing one gram of CO2. Each collecting item is made up of a number of copper tubes that contain water; these are themselves placed in insulated glass tubes that allow the water inside the copper tubes to heat up. The water transfers the accumulated heat to an insulated 50 m3 tank that keeps the water between 80-90°C. The heat is then cooled down to 7°C in two “chilling” machines. Solar power thus allows the center to produce cold air without discharging any particles into the atmosphere, and limits the use of electric power to water circulation pumps. Two regular boilers have also been installed in case the solar power is not sufficient to run the two “chilling” machines. The cold water is used to lower the levels of heat in the rooms that need to be chilled for medical or other purposes. The machines used for this last part of the cooling circuit are called UATs (Units of Air Treatment). There are 8, each one designed for a specific area of the hospital (CPR, surgery, administration, etc). The UATs draw air from outside and “force” it into a 7°C tube that cools it down. A second system of tubes subsequently transports the cool air to various hospital rooms according to need.

In short, the surgery center is kept cool using a combination of the water from the Nile and the Solar panels. For more detail on the design guidelines of the salam center please click here [pdf]. (Thank you Manuel).

It is becoming increasingly clear that solar tech is flexible enough to allow for innovation in any field. Another example of solar being especially useful in the medical field is the ‘Hospital in a box’ invention by Dr. Seyi Oyesola, a TED Global Speaker and innovator.
Hospital in a box by Dr. Oyesola.
Jason Pontin of TR summarized his invention as

It was a simple, portable (well, 150-pound), resilient set of medical devices that makes surgery possible even in the worst parts of the world. The hospital in a box has anesthetic equipment, a defibrillator, a burn unit, plaster-making tools, surgical tools, and an operating table.

In my post on tales of invention, i noted that the ‘Hospital in a box’ can be charged using a truck battery or a solar panel.

Note: TED fellows Dr. Chikwe Iheakweazu and Dr. Ike Anya from Nigeria started the blog ‘Nigeria Health Watch’ to discuss and bring to the fore health care issues in Nigeria and Africa in general. Do visit them and subscribe to their feed if you are in the medical field and want to be in the loop.

Back to architecture: This ted talk from Cameron Sinclair is very inspiring.

Africa RE News – Brief Roundup

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

From the Kenya Gazette last week,
The Oserian Development Corporation has been licensed (by the Minister for Energy) to operate two geothermal power plants at oserian farm, Lake Naivasha area for a period of for 15 years.
There isn’t a link online but this story on the bbc offers some great background info.

From M&G Online – South Africa
Increasing use of renewable energy can be encouraged using an energy policy directive. That is how Denmark did it. South Africa appears to be heading in a positive direction.

Under the proposed by-law — the first of its kind in South Africa — most new buildings (and those undergoing renovations) with a value of more than about R490 000 will be required to meet at least 60% of their water-heating requirements with solar heaters.

The city’s 2005 Energy and Climate-Change Strategy has set a target of having 10% of all city households using solar water heating by 2010. Official estimates put Cape Town’s population at 3,23-million

An update from Timbuktu Chronicles on Ashden award winning companies, Zara Solar of Tanzania and Deng Ltd of Ghana.

Wireless in Laisamis – Remote Cell Phone Base Stations by WinAfrique

Posted on July 2, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

Cross posted on Afrigadget

Coolest picture of the month! (IMO)

Photo courtesy of Bergey. Oct 26 2006 Dedication of the cell phone base station site in Laisamis, Kenya Africa.
The company WinAfrique designs and builds hybrid wind and diesel turbine systems for powering cell phone base stations, and it also offers solar solutions for off grid power generation. Kenya’s biggest wireless companies Safaricom and Celtel have contracted with WinAfrique.

In 2005 Safaricom contracted with Winafrique Technologies in Nairobi to design and supply pilot wind/diesel hybrid systems at three very remote base stations. The systems consisted of a Bergey 7.5 kW turbine on a 24 m (80 ft) SSV tower, sealed batteries, and an inverter. These sites were installed and monitored for one year. The results showed excellent reliability and diesel fuel savings of 70-95%. Based on these positive results, Safaricom has contracted for six more sites, and has many other wind/diesel sites in the planning stage.

Where is Laisamis? click here for a google earth placemark.

Be sure to check out Russell Southwood’s modest proposition – Africa: Power to the Base Stations. In it he presents the opportunity for an independent power producer to supply the energy needs of telecoms, energy hogging hotels and he did not mention this…but i am sure African telecentres of the future. Hat Tip Bankelele.

Bottom Up Vs Top Down, a lesson in Solar Implementation from Senegal.

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

In the post on Electranets, the idea of top down development, something synonymous with the Hippos (including the misguided hippo cheerleaders at Economist ) clashes with the idea of bottom -up development. For an example of just how these top-down initiatives can go awry, lets go to Senegal.

Thanks Emeka for the story.
This piece from IRIN news is instructive, especially since its a solar energy project. It describes an ambitious rural electrification project that was funded by the Japanese and Spanish governments in the form of grants and loans to the Senegalese government to set up Photo voltaic systems for a rural area far from the electricity grid.

The project had good intentions it appears, what with the powerful image of a hut with a solar panel on its roof. As reported on the article, the project is devolving into an unsustainable mess, with only 30% of the people paying the fees for the photovoltaic systems, and ongoing maintenance problems due to lack of money to change the batteries and keep the parts working properly. The article then goes on to describe other problems such as the high cost of fees for the PV systems. The contractors hired by the Senegalese government left in 2005 after their contract ended and the new contractor has 1 technician to service 10,000 home systems. 1. It becomes clear quite quickly that the development model that this project was based on was flawed. Not the technology behind it. I think that the project did not fully involve the community, these guys came in, ‘saved’ the village by installing the PV systems, but they did not think it through. Is the community involved in the maintenance? Nope.

The sad part is that the Senegalese government did not steer the project in a sustainable direction. There can be a partnership between governments that result in great projects (rural electrification using solar is still a superb idea), but the local government on the receiving end of the aid needs to tailor the aid to meet the needs of its people. Take the bottom up approach of training and equipping the community with the skills and this IMO is the most important part. It needs to be a market driven approach. Why would would anyone take ownership of maintaining a system if there wasn’t something in it for them? Rural development could use a few Gordon Gekko’s no? He’d probably shriek at stepping on cow dung and ruining his Johnston and murphy shoes…I am kidding! (filmmakers out there feel free to make a movie about him going to rural Africa to do his ‘greed is good’ speech. I know I would watch that, just invite me to the premiere) That aside, the idea of capitalism needs to be injected into a lot the development models if they are to be sustainable.

So how could this project have been done better? There are great models to follow. The first one that comes to the fore is the Barefoot College in India. Senegal and other countries in Africa can look at other developing countries such as India for models on how to use renewable energy in a viable manner.

The IRIN article points to the unnecessary perception that solar energy is not a viable solution for rural electrification, and that the ‘Donors are watching closely’

Individual and communal solar systems have brought electricity to over 170,000 people in Sine Saloum which lies south of Dakar near the border with The Gambia. The project is the largest of its kind in Senegal and experts say donors are watching it closely to gauge whether solar energy could be a practical means of electrifying other rural areas.

The point that the donors might be missing is, there is a red herring to watch out for. Simon Mwacharo pointed out at TED that solar and wind power systems got a bad rap in the past because the systems were not set up correctly. It appears from the situation in Senegal, that the follow-up plan to maintain the project was severely lacking. Confusing implementation and project model problems with the effectiveness of solar technology in providing power would be a mistake. A detailed article from refocus magazine, showing the obstacles and success conditions in developing countries is helpful in summarizing some of the issues in renewable energy. Projects such as the one in Senegal do require a different type of strategy.

So what practical things can we learn from all this?

From a consumer perspective, if you are out there looking for a solar powered solution for your energy needs, don’t skimp. i came across some good tips in Wired Mag January issue. Specifically

Choose the right system. Want a house that produces all of its own electricity? Opt for monocrystalline or polycrystalline panels. They’re the most efficient �?? and the most expensive. Amorphous photovoltaics are roughly half the price but only about half as efficient. If you can’t bear the appearance of those big black roof slabs, go with building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). Your normal-looking roof and windows become solar catchers.

From a larger country-type perspective, again,

Don’t skimp on setting up a good quality system.
Include a bottom-up strategy of involving entrepreneurs and invest in training for the people who will manage the systems.

In the Refocus magazine June Issue, there is a great interview by David Hopwood. In it he interviews Christoph Paradeis and Andrea Ocker of Solar Fabrik, they were discussing the future of solar as a viable market driven technology. In this bit they were talking about SA and its embracing of wind power. Specifically relating to this post (and the dont skimp bit)…

…

reFOCUS: South Africa appears to be on the verge of embracing windpower at least…

CP: They also started with solar in 2001, just after I joined the organization, but this project failed. They installed solar systems of course but the quality of them was so poor that many failed after two to three years. One of the requirements was that the systems be really cheap, but this caused problems with reliability. Yes, some of those regions are poor, but they should invest in good systems so that they don’t have to change them after several years; this is a false economy.

AO: And besides, people don’t trust the technology any longer if they first experience poor quality.

This post is getting too long so i shall stop here. Thank you for reading this far. How about we go listen to some Ghanaian highlife music over at Museke, or listen to Vusi Mahlasela, Habib Koite and Dobet Gnahore on Afropop?

Sustainable Rural Development Project, Tanzania

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

While at TED Global, i got a chance to speak with William Makali, the president of a company called Full Dimensions in Tanzania, and a TED fellow. His view of development is what he terms ‘The Big Idea!’.

The Big Idea is to create a Rural Development Community Role model sustainable Project. The Community members from other areas will be invited and get immersed in the community activities to learn the Power of Ideas to eradicate poverty. This will help to transfer information to other communities which will evidently result in transforming other communities.

The project is already underway in Singida region, Yullansoni Valley Tanzania, a remote rural village. Please click here for a google earth placemark of Singida. What they have been able to do so far is expand a mobile clinic that started in 1996 into a health center that caters to the community, and install a 38000 liter water tank to store rain water. The exciting thing is is what Mr. Makali is working on now. In his own words:

Installation of the Solar Power at the clinic to upgrade the medical services.

Upgrading the Clinic to become a referral Hospital in the future.

Education of the Solar Power cooking to the community to protect the environment from deforestation and erosion.

Installation of the Sunflower Oil Press industry.

Provision of modern Agricultural tools.

Initiation of Rural Microfinance Credit Bank Facility

Mobilizing the community to create communication Infrastructure.

Mobilizing the community to preserve the environment.

Introduction of Vocational Training School.

Well drillings and water harvest to introduce irrigation system.

Upgrading the Pre school to Primary school and to a secondary school level.

For more details of Mr. Makali’s inititiave in rural Tanzania, please click here for a word document. (He can be reached at wn_love [at] yahoo dot com.)
As you can tell from the list of things he is doing, these are initiatives that aim to serve and involve the community. Although it is still an early stage project, it has a bottom-up component that i particularly like. The initiatives are formulated by him a Tanzanian who is familiar with the realities and challenges of rural development, and not from without. Not only did i find what he is doing laudable, i really liked the by line on his business card. It says “Think Big, Think Smart, Think Creative, Think Positive, Work Smart, Make a difference”.

Simon Mwacharo Renewable Energy Entrepreneur – Video

Posted on June 19, 2007 by Juliana Rotich

Simon Mwacharo and William Kamkwamba – Renewable Energy Innovators.

Here is the video i did with Simon Mwacharo, the founder of Craftskills, a wind and solar company based in Kenya. This was recorded after his TED talk which you can find a great summary of at LHKB Ethan�??s and my post on his talk can be found here.

**I am a total noob on this one, please pardon the frequent uh huh�??s vigorous head nodding and leading questions�?�I said it was a conversation right? Right. I promise that the next video I make will definitely be better; I am getting started on Pixel Corps to get me on the road to better digital media work.(Thanks Alex Lindsay). Ok, without further ado�?�

Please click here to download the video

Update1: Mr. Mwacharo commented on the post

We are situated in Kibera slums Nairobi and are looking for a chance to give Africa her pride. Funds will come in handy to place us on an industrial scenario where we can produce these turbines at a lower cost and benefit wananchi.

Check out his company here.

Meeting these two gentlemen pictured above at TED was indeed an honour. I am not the only one who was impressed…Nii Simmonds has a post on William Kamkwamba, “I see I make”.

Update 2: Via Hash, William Kamkwamba has a blog, do visit him here.

Afromusing

Africa and Beyond!

Category Archives: Solar