Is our solar node already in existence?

Today we saw something amazing while walking through the main roads of Masaka. Lydia brought to my attention a very large billboard that was advertising a solar powered node-like device. It stressed phone charging, house lighting and power for a radio; all things which had envisioned our nodes being used for. This was very striking because a for profit company has found that there is a market for exactly our product. It’s promising in a sense but I wonder how many locals can really afford this system. The billboard also said that this device could be source of income for the owners, just as we intended.

The billboard advertising what is essentially our solar node and business plan.

Today we also found a small shop selling solar panels among the many shops on the main road which were selling 100 W solar panels for approximately $300 US if we use the reasonable exchange rate of 2500 shillings to the USD. This is more expensive than the solar panels we ordered ($180) off Amazon but not too far-fetched for the US market. For the Ugandan market however this is really expensive. The people who live in un-electrified villages are typically the poorest and they would be the people who use it the most. In Masaka a large number of places have electricity connections to the main grid although blackouts are quite frequent. Tonight in fact, the power is going on and off periodically.

Additionally, at the Plot 99 Cafe where we had lunch, one of the waitresses said that her boss knew a group who also supplied solar powered devices for general small scale electricity. The name of this group was Barefoot Power, no affiliation to Barefoot College I presume.

Card advertising Barefoot Power in the café.

At the bottom of the advertisement it says that one of the lights in this kit would be 10 times brighter than a Katadooba which I learnt was a Kerosene lamp. This is usually what people use if they don't have electricity or there is a blackout. I would be interesting to know what battery system is used in this kit. Perhaps just small rechargeable batteries are used for the lamp.

We also walked through a small supermarket type stall earlier in the afternoon and found someone in the corner of the shop fixing what looked like a food blender or some similar appliance. It was something with an AC motor in it. I asked him where he got the skills to fix this device. His response was simply that he had grown up around electronics and that fixing such devices was now his job. Another thing we noticed was that in our rooms here at the Zebra Inn, the small TVs actually have a European plug even though all Ugandan outlets use the English plug. So their solution was to widen the European prongs and force it to fit the English socket. Smart hack really; I think I would have invested in an adapter.

Hack of European power plug to fit into the English style outlets.

This sort of ‘hacking’ culture could really be taken advantage of with our project. Apart from phone charging and house lighting that will come with our nodes, what we also provide is access to a steady 12 V or anything less. When we are actually in our deploying location we will have better judgment about the new vision that we had. Maybe it is possible to give people the skills such as making good electrical connections and having a feel for which devices need certain voltages. This does not include all the mathematical or theoretical groundings of electrical engineering and circuit theory but just some knowledge on what electrical system comprise of. If these skills are well understood and taught to other people we could set up a system where the locals contact us with projects they want to pursue and we guide them as to what parts they need and how to put them together. We can obviously do this even while in the US. 

An example could be something like powering a radio they have which is currently battery powered. If they can identify that it is run on less than 12 V and can follow instructions to make a simple circuit (which would have things like voltage regulator in it) we could send them the schematics and parts needed to adapt that radio to the node. They would no longer need to buy batteries for the radio which are really expensive in Uganda. These skills could really spread to unforeseen projects and would have a real time response for emerging needs and wants among that community. This is similar training that Barefoot Collage provides in India and Sierra Leone. We will keep this idea in the back of our heads.