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Solar Power in the Third World
KTS writes: "Over at Wired, there's an interesting article about the use of solar energy by the rural poor in the Dominican Republic. Soluz, Inc., a Massachussetts-based company, has installed thousands of solar panels on an island where most of the rural population is cutoff from the power-grid. Says the article: "Rural communities rely on solar energy for everything from pumping clean water from aquifers to recharging cell phone batteries." According to another article, the Dominican Republic now has "more [solar panels] per capita than anywhere else in the world." After constantly hearing about the misuse of technology, stories like this make you feel good. With solar power, it looks like developing countries can avoid much of the downside that comes with electric power, while reaping the benefits. Zero polution, no overhead lines, and no squandered petroleum (after all, we need the oil for ourselves)."
anyone know the lifecycle cost of solar cell power vs other types of power?
Well, first you have the solar cells. Fancy new ones will probably cost $10 per watt, but I have seen perfectly good looking surplus ones for around $4/watt. So you would be looking at about $160 or so for the 40 watts mentioned in this story.
Of course, you aren't just going to nail the solar cells to a tree, so also figure in the cost of a nice frame. Considering that these people don't have a lot of money, I think it would be better to make the frames locally, and save on the labor costs. How does $20 for a plywood and plexiglas frame sound?
We also want some way to store the power. A deep-cycle marine battery is just right for this. Figure maybe $50 for that. The rich imperialist systems also include a charge controller, but our friends might prefer to save the $100 or so and flip a switch when the battery is fully charged. Add maybe $10 for a pair of cheap gauges (volts and amps).
Also figure in the cost of electrical wiring and miscellaneous hardware. I think we could get the cost down to around $250 if our goal is to provide power affordably.
How long will all this last? My guess is that the cells may (may!) last 10 years, the battery as long as five, and the frame maybe a few years. That brings my 10-year estimate to maybe $300 to $400, or up to $40 per year.
A dingo ate my sig...
This is one of those ideas that makes such perfect sense. Solar is currently an expensive solution on a per KWh basis to add to an existing grid. But, when there is no power infrastructure in place, it's not surprising to see it as a good solution. I'm glad there are people finally out there trying to get it going.
The big trick with a low input power system like that is the user's energy budget. Here in the states, we're used to having a huge budget for power. But, when you live on battery or generator power, you learn to economize. Folks in rural areas won't have the energy budget we may be used to in an urban area, but any power is better than none, and Solar is often a great solution. One reason many long distance cruisers (sailboats) rely heavily on big batteries and a rack of solar cells...
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
Not only that, but youre using a NUCLEAR power source! Not many of you may know this, but the sun is a giant NUCLEAR furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium, at a temperature of MILLIONS of degrees. Were you also aware that most solar panels actually collect the RADIATION put out by the sun? I dont know about you, but I dont want RADIATION collectors anywhere near me or my CHILDREN. We need to stop all use of NUCLEAR power, including solar, and move to safe, clean COAL energy, just like our VP says to.
Only in America can the above statement be Funny :-(
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
What I learned, however, was that the sun is much better at heating things up than creating electricity. Heat a home, or water for a home, or a greenhouse - at these the sun excels. Also, we're still not very good at converting that energy into electricity. We would have been much farther along 'cept for fucking Ronald Reagan (link's dated, but funny). Bastard killed off solar energy research in the 80s.
Anyway. Solar power is useful, yes, especially in 3rd-world countries where people aren't such energy hogs. But until our technology improves vastly (or we all start using much less energy), solar-generated electricity isn't going to help the 1st world very much.
"We all say so, so it must be true!"
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
It seems to me that I don't use much of my roof space. I mean, I can't even get up there to bask in the sun or get drunk and fall off for the neighbors' amusement. Think there might be a square mile of south-facing roof in your town?
He has many hundreds of usenet posts, ideas about converting an existing house to 100% solar, low cost and warm homeless shelters, and is conducting solar heating experiments, all using inexpensive / easily obtainable materials.
If you're interested in solar heating, you should check him out.
The Department of Energy does actually have a few programs set up in the United States to promote solar power use in the US. One is the Million Solar Roofs Initiative (MSR) which provides grants to state and local partnerships to try develop uses for solar energy in communities. The program plans to have a million solar roof systems in place in the United States by the year 2010.
There is a map of current locations of partnerships in the United States here:
http://www.eren.doe.gov/millionroofs/tally.html
The main webpage for the program can be found here:
http://www.eren.doe.gov/millionroofs/"
And here is a list of projects that have already been put into place in the United States related to this program:
http://www.eren.doe.gov/millionroofs/news.html
bbh
While this may sound crazy, flourescent lights have come a long way and the technology is fairly common and is becoming cheaper everyday.
The cool thing about flourescent bulbs is that they now come in standard "edison" screw type sizes so you don't need to buy those long tubes. On top of this, they are over 80% efficient (only 20% of energy is turned to heat) and last 10,000 hours! [5 - 7 years under average use] Good old incandescent bulbs only last 1,000 hours at most and are only 15% efficient. (85% of the energy goes up as heat.)
Not only is this a boon for 3rd world countries, but it is helpful for 1st world ones with states that have rolling black-outs. :^)
So if you're a Californian trying to get in on the 20/20 deal, you might want to look into getting flourescent lights for your house. Not only do they produce less heat, they consume only 1/5th the electricity.
The best place that I've found to buy flourescent bulbs online is some company called http://www.energyguide.com and New Englanders get a $5 discount per bulb making them practically free. So what are you waiting for? Save yourself some money by lowering your electricity bill! (and perhaps avoid rolling blackouts!)
Living here in California where people are constantly complaining about rising electric rates and rolling blackouts that disrupt your soap opera viewing, articles like this really help put things in perspective. Imagine a country where renting a 40-watt photovoltaic panel can be a life changing experience. Totally alien to our own way of life.
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"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" -- T. Jefferson
If the government really cared about getting alternative energy in use here in the US, they'd enforce net metering laws. What this means is: you hook up your [wind|solar|thermonuclear] electrical source to the grid, and when you put electricity back into the grid you get credit for it. Simple enough. With older technology, all that was required was a device to make sure that your current was in phase with the grid, and your meter would run 'backwards'. Now with the new, electronic meters, doing so would make you PAY for the electricity you put into the grid! This is absurd. In many states there are LAWS that REQUIRE the utilities to implement net metering, but they are being blatantly ignored. If you want more info, read Home Power Magazine, which has really good info, all in an archive for FREE! (but hey, subscribe, send them some money, it's a worthy cause).
It takes hard-core chemical usage to
manufacture photovoltaic cells. Just remember
that there are other ways to exploit the sun,
as well (solar ovens, solar heating ranges,
et cetera).
The economics of solar power are actually excellent. A few pertinent facts:
1.) Solar cell sales have grown at a CAGR over 15% for the last 15 years. PV production has been running at capacity for over 10 years, despite construction of new PV manufacturing facilities. PV sales are on allocation and have multi-year backlogs.
2.) PV sales are now far more dominated by considerations of cost effective power generation than by considerations of cost effective publicity generation.
3.) US installations of solar cells are very widespread, but are now being installed mostly by people who do not spend money on publicity regarding the installations.
4.) Most installations are cost justified by the cost of installing grid power vs the cost of installing the PV system. For a small data monitoring system (commonly needed for railroads, natural resource sites, etc.) the cost of the PV system is usually less than the cost of installing one utility pole. So you see PV power even in fairly urban areas. For larger installations, the construction cost tradeoff is usually something like 1-2 miles from power line to power need. Then PV makes sense. There are lots of sites like these, but they are all miles from the nearest road and get little publicity.
The question of solar power is not whether it is useful or not, or clean or not. It's really a matter of whether it's economical or not.
In the Dominican Republic, a small island isolated from the immense power grids of places like the USA and Europe, with limited ability and resources to produce its own power, it's perfectly feasible (even with the high cost of replacing solar panels in the long run). However, we have a huge infrastructure for pumping, transporting, and burning petroleum.
High efficiency, low-maintenance solar cells are a good direction in which to spend research $$, but I think it'll take a major shift in economics to make this work--especially with competing fuel sources like fuel cells on the very-near horizon.
The best solar cells generally have about 30% efficiency, relative to the total flux of sunlight hitting the earth in the given area. To output 100 MW requires about 1 square mile of cells - that's enough power for about 18,000 people (Americans, that is... or about a million Dominicans).