Simple Solar - Parts 4 through 8

From My Basic Solar Advice:

First, reduce your load. Insulate, caulk, seal everything you can. Weatherize everything up the wazoo, even going so far as to get a blower door test - pressurizing your house with a large fan installed in the front door and having a professional go around finding where all the air leaks are. Get the most efficient appliances (refrigerators tend to be the largest electrical load in the house) and lights that you can find and afford and install them. When you've become as efficient and energy-conserving as you can be, then start thinking about solar.

Then, and only then, go solar.

This is my solar backpack. It has three solar lighting systems on it which I use for my lights when riding my bicycle at night. I've been using it for four or five years now, hasn't failed me yet, and cost a little over $60 to put together. Dirty F*ck*ng Solar Hippie Backpack

Minimal solar lights and flashlights, solar is civil defense, and an affordable way to ease into the renewable future. After all, Solar Is Civil Defense

Solar and dynamo power for reliable sources of low voltage DC power: light, radio, cell phone, and anything that uses a battery. The combination of small scale solar and a hand cranked or foot pedaled dynamo provides a reliable source of low voltage DC electricity, day or night, by sunlight or muscle power. It is one method to bring useful amounts of electricity to the quarter of the world's population that does not now have access and a good idea to have on hand in the industrialized world in case of emergency and disaster.

Here's the summation of my 30 years of playing with sunlight and demonstrating simple solar devices for a couple hundred thousand of people throughout the Northeast. This short clip reviews all the devices and techniques I presented in the rest of this series.

Simple Solar - Parts 1, 2, and 3

I presented a workshop on Simple Solar at the Boston Skill Share on a windy Sunday, April 19, outside the Stata Center at MIT. Werner and Julie of Videosphere recorded me and I finally got around to doing a rough edit of the first part, the simplest solar devices that anyone can make to disinfect and heat water and cook food.

It's six and a half minutes long, I have the sniffles and say "All right?" a lot but the rest of the information is good. After all, solar heating is remarkably simple:
dark heats up
light reflects
clear keeps out the wind



Boiling water and cooking with the Simple Solar principles and using the basic geometry of the parabolic curve to focus light in a line and a circle with a parabolic trough and parabolic dish.



The late Tim Harkness made the parabolic dish used in the video on that windy April day. There is a Tim Harkness Fund for Invention at Hampshire College which awards grants for innovative work in applied design and invention, especially in areas of sustainability and renewable energy. Students and alumni from the Five Colleges are eligible.

How to Draw a Parabola

Draw a Parabola with pencil and string



Simple solar windowbox air heater for supplemental heating of a single room. This device uses a solar electric fan assist and can be built full scale (2 feet x 4 feet) for about $100 worth of materials.

More on the Windowbox Solar Air Heater

More on simple solar devices:
A South-Facing Window Is Already a Solar Collector
Your Southernmost Window
Solar IS Civil Defense
Solar IS Civil Defense, Illustrated

Earlier Diaries:
Old Solar: 1980 Barnraised Solar Air Heater
Old Solar: Keck and Keck Twentieth Century Modern
Old Solar: Venetian Vernacular
Old Solar: 1881

Under-Utilized Installed Solar Capacity in Afghanistan

By my count, over 700,000 solar/dynamo radios have been distributed throughout Afghanistan by US and NATO forces. As built, they charge only the dedicated, internal, hardwired radio batteries. With an easy modification, they could charge standard size rechargeable batteries. Then people could always charge an extra set of batteries. They would have a reliable source of low voltage DC power, day or night, by sunlight or muscle power. Through battery switching, charging one set of batteries while using another, they could power LED lights, cell phones, tape and CD players, walkie-talkies, possibly even computers.

Some of our soldiers know how to do these modifications. Are the people of Afghanistan doing them too?



The radios were distributed as part of a psychological warfare program, to bring news of the invasion and the intentions of the coalition forces to the people. You can read more about that program here or here.

Not only the military is interested in this idea of solar/dynamo battery charging. I have had a couple of commercial solar/dynamos modified for my own use and below is a circuit diagram for the battery charging modification Richard Komp of ME Solar Energy Association drew for me.



The solar/dynamo battery charger is a key part of my personal Solar Civil Defense, providing power for the flashlight, radio, cell phone, and extra set of batteries we all should have on hand in case of emergency.

I believe that such devices can be used as a solar swadeshi, a modern adaptation of Gandhi's spinning wheel. In fact, Gandhi's spinning wheel has been adapted to electrical generation so that an hour of spinning thread can provide nearly three hours of LED light. This is the e-charkha. You can see the e-charkha in action here.

Some people are even going farther, Taikkun Li has proposed a Tibetan prayer wheel generator and LED lighting system. Given the current economic, political, and ecological situation, there are some days when I feel we really do need electric prayer.

PS: US AID plans to distribute about 250,000 solar/dynamo radios to Sudan over the next five years or so for a nation-building project. These solar/dynamos also charge only the dedicated, internal, hardwired radio batteries.

Small Scale LED Lighting + Off-Grid Cell Phone Charging in Mali

Matt Berg currently serves as the Information Communications Technology (ICT) Coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project based out of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City and prior to that, was the director of the Geekcorps Mali program in Bamako, Mali.

Inspired by Jan Chipchase, I put together the following photo montage [pdf alert] covering the ever increasing number of cheap Chinese LED lights that are transforming the way people access lighting. There are a lot of amazing NGOs doing work to address the issue of rural household lighting but I think they are at best a fill-gap to an existing market gap. The mass market solution (LED + small rechargeable battery + 1 W solar panel) that will really make a difference will be Chinese and at a price that will encourage extremely fast adoption rates. This is evident from the introduction of LED flashlights in Mali that completely took over the market in less than six months.

I also document the common way most cell phone charging is done in an off-grid environment. While it may not the be the most power efficient or battery safe method it works and is both cheap to the supplier and consumer. Used car batteries you can see are the 'power lines' in a lot of African villages that form the basis of distributed power distribution.

More at http://buildafrica.org/2009/04/28/led-lights-and-12vcell-phone-charging-mali/

Matt Berg is exactly right. LED light, battery, and small solar packages will hit the market within a year or two. LED lights and cell phones bring most if not all of the world's population into the electric (and communication) network. They can also be charged with a hand crank or bicycle generator. Extra 6 volt motorcycle and 12 volt car batteries can be charged in the course of driving a car or truck. Minimum "clean" electricity is affordably feasible in the world today, if only we realize it.

I wish the US government noticed. By my count, there have been over 700,000 solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radios distributed in Afghanistan by US and NATO forces since before our 2001 invasion. None of them can charge a cell phone or a standard size battery as currently configured. US AID is sending 16,000 solar/dynamo radios to the Sudan this year and plans to send 250,000 over the next few years as part of a nation-building program. None of them, so far, will charge a cell phone or an extra battery. All of them could.

These techniques can also be useful when the grid goes down, which is one reason why I say:

Solar IS Civil Defense

Solar Fountain at the Farmers' Market

I take my solar fountain out for a walk from time to time at farmers' markets and in the city squares. Around the fountain are posters which display what I think are some of the rules of living within a restorative ecology. The splash of water makes a difference in public and children like to learn that they can turn the fountain on and off with the shadow of a hand.

Solar Fountain at the Farmers Market

More energy demo ideas for farmers' markets at Mr Franklin's Folks.