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What Solar Equipment to Power Disaster Recovery?

Posted by Cliff on from the soak-up-the-sun dept.

MailtoDelete asks: "I work with a team that is involved with disaster recovery efforts after natural disasters, like Katrina. We have satellite based equipment that allows us to bring data connections up in devastated areas to help bring the infrastructure back online to serve the public. I have looked at the main networking equipment and determined that the power draw is usually low (about 50 watts) and was curious about the possibility of using a small solar setup to power the equipment rather than running a 8-10kw generator to do the same work (after all, fuel may be scarce). Can anyone suggest a good site or book that I can look into that would help me learn more about what equipment would best serve my purpose? There is a small business in town that does this sort of work, and they have suggested a 550 watt array with the controllers, etc for about $5100. Does this sound reasonable?"

2 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Marine Equipment by Cycon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Try taking a look at marine equipment. There's plenty of resources online, or if you're near the coast try a boating shop. The larger the better. They're experienced with all sorts of weather-hardened equipment (what if the rain comes back?) that generates power in that range. Be aware you'll likely need some sort of battery system to store the juice and provide output at a sustained rate. You'll probably want to look into deep-cycle batteries.

    Basically there's people on the go all over the world with no steady supply of power or fuel who have to be prepared for intense weather conditions - they're called yachties (c:

    --
    Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
  2. Emergencies are no place for eco-ethics by sheddd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So you need 50W of power (maybe at multiple locations). Do you want to do it green, or get a job done?

    A (I'm generalizing) small, light, reliable, and cost effective way to go about it is with mass produced fuel burning products (like small generators).

    I like green, but solar cells in an emergency are not the most cost efficient way to power something, especially considering transport / setup / weather.