microPower - now a global campaign!

Following a global spread of responses to this blog and the superb discussions with delegates from Greenpeace etc at WSF 2004, The microPower Initiative must now join the global quest for inexpensive solar solutions and execute small but doable steps towards meeting this scenario:

Our world faces a grim energy scenario with increasing deforestation, fossil and fissile fuel reserves facing depletion; climate changes from the Greenhouse effect aided by harmful emissions from a host of processes attributed to the industrialized nations and more fatal pollution by fuels. Millions of women and children die from cooking fires from want of a clean fuel and cook-stove, while ozone-depleting Greenhouse gases like the CFCs threaten the atmosphere itself. About 2 Billion people do not access electricity. A pace of electrification that even at its best would still leave 1.4 Billion people without power by 2030 , let alone other essential utilities like water and cooking gas aggravates the situation.

The corporate sector from the so-called 1st World seems to be ambiguous. On one hand, their powerful lobbying and financial support gives ready bait to administrators in developing countries to buy large power plants and electrify large areas but make them dependant on the vendor-countries for relevant technology, skills, supplies of naptha, liquid natural gas, coke, petroleum or even nuclear fuels, besides endangering the environment with emissions. Or by propagating large projects like dams incorporating heavy hydel generators and centralized irrigation systems that submerge large tracts of land, upset the saline balance in soil and displace thousands of homes to impose a revenue burden on the citizen and a debt burden on the beneficiary nation. When the tailrace waters from these plants are fed used to construct another monstrous thermal plant, these effects are further compounded. On the other hand, 1st-world corporate behemoths are building large wind-mills and mini-hydel plants, which suffice for small village clusters and towns but are in many cases introduced through heavy lobbying, credit finance, export subsidies and connected to feed a centralized grid. Possibly these vendors can argue that developing countries have no other viable buyer than the government or its own power-grid authority.

Hopefully this would be resolved once the cooperative sector and peoples initiative groups become more active and financially strong allies of the corporate sector, instead of being adversaries.

As a thumb rule, electricity is about a third of all energy production, while oil, gas, coal and fissile fuels account for the rest. This proportion is, indeed interestingly, maintained at most national levels. Obviously this reflects the consumption pattern. Yet, specific local energy needs vary according to the breakup of local energy-consuming activity like industry, farming or mining as well as the local households and lifestyles. All this calls for multi-pronged and localized energy solutions, as against any ‘mono-culture’ wherein one energy source meets all needs.

Gender issues are also involved here as are poverty issues. Energy needs extend to cooking and housewarming needs, all of which affect the woman homemaker. Compounding energy costs and poor availability further fuel poverty and force compromises by way of pollutant and inefficient sources of heat, light and motive power.

However, pressure by organizing people and opinions against the ethics of foisting undesirable solutions and dual environmental standards, from the grass-roots to the policy-making levels. Also taking advantage of world-wide gatherings and events, various peoples initiative groups are attempting a dialogue between the perpetrators and its affected nations, resulting in the Carbon Credits and CDM or Clean Development Mechanism to enable the developing world to benefit by financial assistance from the 1st World in their endeavor to deploy ‘clean’ technologies for energy and utility, though a lot more needs to be done in this sphere.

RE systems – solar, wind, hyrdro and biomass - being relatively fuel-independent, environment-friendly besides being adaptable and scalable to a variety of command area scenarios, make a strong, viable and self-helping alternative for people to meet energy supplies. Solar-thermal and photovoltaic solutions have proven fully viable and feasible at the home and local-area level over the years, whereas wind and hydro power technologies have proven their mettle at the wide-area levels. This gives tremendous scope for self-help at the local level. Local persons, with a minimum of guidance and material, can put up simple systems to meet their energy needs. Incentives can also be provided in developing local micro-entrepreneurs to store components and consumables, assemble small systems, supply, and commission, maintain and upgrade them as needed. Investment is flexible to owners’ funds local enterprise or cooperative banking by beneficiary groups, given the scale-flexible nature of these systems.

Relevantly, India’s RE movement makes it a global lesson to the world. Given its origins in the 50s in micro-hydel following the Vickers study for the 1st 5-year Plan, the 60s in bio-gas, the 70s in solar and wind based systems. India is presently home to the 5th largest installed base in MwH terms and home to globally top-ranked manufacturers of solar and wind energy systems. At least one Indian renewable energy entrepreneur has served on the World Bank’s advisory panel on RE as far back as 1980-81. Greenpeace India’s (www.greenpeaceindia.org) publication Power from Renewables- An Indian Success Story and other documents also highlight this.

Meanwhile observes that just like Greenpeace and its affiliated bodies have done in Latin America, Africa and Asia, a number of bodies like the Intermediate Technology Development Group, (www.itdg.org) Light Up the World Foundation (www.lightuptheworld.org) as well as small initiatives including DIY Solar (www.biodesign.org.uk) are involved in providing low-power, low-cost SPV or solar photovoltaic products that have illuminated homes and as effectively, have energized radio and telecom equipment in a number of African and Asian countries. Micro-enterprises have also developed through these efforts.

Likewise one also observes, collaborative efforts of Indian industry and the State Nodal Agencies have seen the success of solar cookers in millions of Indian homes, particularly across the western half of India. Improvement programmes for pump installations and cook-stoves have seen varied success. Solar-thermal air and water heating has been taken up in homes and some process industries, to save several hundreds in MwH of electrical energy that would have been used for geysers and heaters. SPV streetlights and battery-backed invertors for community power supply have been installed in many villages too, along with solar stills (for distilled water to re-fill batteries) after training and motivating local beneficiaries or beneficiary-groups to clean, monitor these systems, report and follow-up servicing and repairs, also under such partnerships.

One further observes that international financial institutions like the World Bank and IDRC have pitched in by way of financial support for a number of projects in RE. Few of these were direct and many more are co-funded or through a local body, like the IREDA in India. However, some of their poverty redresser policies have come under of a cloud of late.

Can all these endeavors not unite into a single, win-win global initiative?

Vexatious cost of photovoltaic power and how we beat it

Vexatious cost of photovoltaic power and how we beat it

Cost of all PV products is one sore point we must tackle. It affects the economics of all solar power applications, esp. in in India. Here is why:

1. The global prices of crystalline silicon solar cells are centred about USD 2 per Wp or Peak Watt, the average power generated
   during those sunshine hours as can be tapped (called peak insolation
   hours)
   
2. Most of India, for example, has a yearly mean of 4.5 peak insolation hours. Hence a 2Wp cell/panel generates 2 X 4.5 = 9 Watt-hours of energy. Hence, while the cost 'per watt' is high, a typically
   tropical country, with its higher insolation hours, produces more energy and
   makes for a lower cost per watt-hour, say as against a European or
   Polar location.
   
3. However - In case of crystalline silicon cells, these need to be opened in a vacuum chamber, mouned on panels, silver-soldered with all interconnections and external leads and then encapsulated in resin. This process makes a panel in a Western country anywhere up to USD 8 per Wp, while in India, TBP, BHEL, Udhaya and others sell their panels at Rs 200-250 or 5 USD per Wp. (Previously, 5USD/Wp used to be the import cost of cells alone.)
   
4. BUT these panels start at 35 Watts, i.e. Rs 7000-9000 each. These make for half the cost of a typical SPV-based power system  comprising charge regulator, battery, load-side controller, load equipment (50 Hz invertor / Electronic ballast + PL lamp / Fan / combinations  thereof) This makes for the high cost of the solar streetlights and domestic light-fan systems that you see being advertised by Tata BP, Udhaya, Ritika, SELCO and so many others.
   
5. Due to the selling costs increasig by the day,
   especially in this business where Government subsidies are involved, manufacturers are steadily increasing the power ratings per system instead of reducing them. In fact they have dropped manufacture of 9/10Wp panels and extended their ratings to 75 and 125 Watts!
   
6. However, to drive a DC motor as in a pump, the power required is DOUBLE the HP rating of the motor. This is why a 1.5 KW pump
   makes for an astronomical cost.  
   
7. For the above set of reasons, such systems are only justified in cases where the cost of not having power is greater. Large
   parts of Andhra should come within this parts.
   
8. The MNES and SNAs or State Nodal Agencies also buy
   these systems from manufacturers and install them at their full/part cost in areas selected by them. Ridiculously so, in states like Haryana and Punjab which are supposedly 100% electrified.
   
9. Subsidisation is availed in no-power zones, where the panel cost is borne by the Central Govt and some State Govts too subsidised. But this subsidisation is gradually being withdrawn.
   
10. Anyway, there are a lot of "contingencies" involved in this business. Manufacturers naturally have to pad selling margins.
    
11. About 40-60% of India's PV production, as per individual ministry's allocation goes to the Non-Subsidy sectors of Telecom (the P&T Microwave network, etc) Railways (communication, signalling and remote area station lighting) Oil & Gas (field radio and pipe-line protection, a kind of plating process) as well as Defence (radio and camp lighting) ... obviously, their costs of not having any power are much larger than the cost of these equipment, which are further marked up in price due to the higher QC & Reliability Engg quotients here. So a good time is had by all!
    
12. These concepts seem to be emulated by other developing countries as well, though Indian products become somewhat cheaper
    due to the low labour quotient as well as export subsidies. I believe that some silicon cells are still imported against an export obligation.

For this reason, the industry does not appear to be
in a hurry to go beyond the tender-driven product lines and high unit prices. Last year Tata BP made Rs 720 million from domestic sales and another Rs 1.28
billion from exports, using its BP connections in Africa, East Asia, etc.

 

On the other hand:

1. Amorphous silicon is about 1 USD per Wp.
   
2. Its handicap is that it takes a 6"X6" square
   surface to deliver 1Wp as against about 1"X1" sq in a mono-crystalline cell.
   
3. Scientists call it poor efficiency. Manufacturers
   of crystalline cells claim an efficiency range of 14 to 18 %, (converting that fraction of all solar radiation falling on a unit area into electricity) an amorphous silicon cell converts at 6 to 8 %.
   
4. Earlier, amorphous silicon could be deposited in
   very thin layers, grealty hampering current carrying capacity and the crystalline lobby claimed it was only suitable for small watches, calculators, etc.
   
5. The truth is that crystalline panels have their losses caused by heating up of cells in the sun and due to current, also due to the heating up of soldered joins and interconnection leads, being covered by insulating resin. This reduces the effective efficiency to 10-12 %. On the other hand, improvements in amorphous technology have brought these too effectively in the 10% conversion range.
   
6. Current and reliability limitations have been largely overcome, by being able to coat amorphous silicon in vapour form on glass sheets in strip form. The coatings are covered with an aluminum laminates.
   
7. aSi or amorphous silicon panels are now mass-produced this way.
   
8. This makes it possible for us to cut amorphous silicon or aSi coated glass panels to a desired voltage and current in a way as to choose the length of each strip by the current and number of strips by the voltage.
   
9. So even if a panel is supplied in large ratings of several Watts and a Metre in length/width, as from some European and Japanese manufacturers, we can literally cut our cloth to our needs. Hence the range from about 300mWp to 2Wp.
   
10. This way, we keep the costs low.
    
11. To arrive at this low power rating, we study each energy usage application to -
    - find the lowest amount of energy units
    needed to do a task, say illuminate ground, light a room, lift water from a tank, charge a radio's batteries in a day, ...
    - Energy being Power X Time,
    we then decide if the charge needs to be complete in 1 day or more;
    - For
    each day of charging we assume Time = 4.5 Hrs;
    - Hence power required
    becomes Energy in Watt-hours/ 4.5 Hours.

Herein I have let you into another round of our secrets. ;))

 

The next post will be in finding out the lowest
energy solution. You will be surprised at what we have found ... questioning so
many absolutes ... like the mini pump application that Graham
Knight uses in African & Asian projects ... perhaps at 1/1000th the cost of what anyone provides here!

 

Regards

 

Udit Chaudhuri

MAXIMISE YOUR MILLIWATT - See the microPower section at http://unika.freehomepage.com

 

micropower - empowering villages

For the lower middle-class, caught between an erratic-if-accessible mains supply and expensive dry cells, microPower provides a reliable solar battery charger. Unlike the slew of PV systems vendors in India selling at 5-digit prices, microPower solutions begin with Rs 60 (USD 1=50) to charge one AA size battery. More products are planned, e.g LED lamps, path-way markers, distress flashers, mini-vent blowers, mini-pumps etc.

Headquartered at Mumbai in India, microPower invites partnerships with such developmental bodies including Nodal Agencies, NGOs and FIs, that have an interest in rural welfare, energy development, ICT and environmental programmes. Applications range from battery support for hand-helds like the Simputer to water pumping.

microPower can offer ready products for retailers as well as assemblies for micro-entrepreneurs and field workers. Prototypes are successfully field-proven and accessible for demonstration.

Latest details of the microPower solar charger, for a range of batteries and duty cycles are each available via the microPower link at http://unika.freehomepage.com as listed below below:-
1 microPower a5.PDF gives basic product range information; Prints in 2 of A5 pages.
2 microPower charger data for the domestic (indian) reseller market.
3 microPower Vision - where we aim to be seen in 5 years
5 microPower Mission - operations and products
4 microPower Team - a profile on the core team at microPower

You are welcome to suggest a role your organisation may participate in the success of this initiative, However, the microPower team shall be too happy to propose a scope of our involvement, should you share any project plan in related development fields.

The microPower team looks forward to your feedback and suggestions.

Contact:

Udit Chaudhuri - The microPower Initiative


e-mail: uditnc@gmail.com
Tel - Fax: +91-22-26045595
URL:UNIKA ENTERPRISES - eNabling Growth

INFRASTRUCTURE FOR ICT PROJECTS IN 3RD WORLD COUNTRIES

Infrastructure is a major issue any ICT enabling effort - be it the
Simputer, Village Internet, WiFi... but greatly underestimated.

Whereas about every hamlet in your command area may even have an educated,
computer-aware if not entirely PC-literate person as your potential user, the supporting utilities such as transmitting-receiving networks, land-lines and, basic to all these - reliable mains power at a reasonable voltage - are often insufficient if not absent, while the local administration and official figures may point otherwise.

Therefore, any ICT enabling programme needs to work on a two-pronged approach: To liaise with the local administration (communications and energy are mostly government owned or controlled) and pursue the progress of local electrification and comm networks, at the same time planning a supporting ICE programme, to the extent of your aims.

Seeking partnerships with such developmental bodies including NGOs, the microPower initiative modestly envisions the independence of a working class rural / urban fringe family rom public utilities for its most basic energy, information and communication needs.

First, microPower offers autonomous power solutions for the rural / semi-urban beneficiary and will soon follow this up with OEMs in the ICT sector with appropriate built-in solar power and energy storage devices.

A data sheet on microPower solar photovoltaic battery chargers is available on request.

An associate, Net Radiophony Pvt Ltd www.radiophony.com meets
requisite technology and equipment needs - ranging from Wi Fi and software to
commissioning accessories and services, so as to provide whole and
appropriate systems. The website gives more information.

For enquiries:

The microPower Initiative
c/o Udit Chaudhuri
Unika Enterprises
e-mail: uditnc@gmail.com
Tel - Fax: +91-22-26045595

Regards
Udit Chaudhuri