When in Rome...

Yesterday we bought two 100 AH deep cycle batteries. We got both for 800,000 Ugandan shillings which is roughly $320 USD. Just 1 hour previous to buying these I was given my FSD seed grant which is designed to fund a portion of the project each intern is working on. It didn’t take me long to blow the whole lot since the grant was 750,000 shillings. The extra 50k came from the youth group.

One of the deep-cycle batteries. German technology but definitely manufactured in China.

Today we brought the batteries out to the field. One will go to Lwemodde and the other will head to Malembo. Each day we take a boda-boda (motorcycle) to work but today we need another one to just carry the batteries. Each one weighed an estimated 30 kg. 

When in Rome, use Boda to carry your deep-cycle batteries.

First thing we did when arriving in Lwemodde was install their new battery. This was twice the capacity of the their 50 AH car batteries and will last much much longer since it is not a vehicle battery. Finally the solar charge controller will actually do something because the vehicle batteries, which were sitting siting at a comfortable 8-10 V, were not really charging at all. The group now has a really cute set up with the charge controller outside of the box (because the last one melted from overheating inside), the control box all wired up and sending power to the load box which is just a set of connectors to phone chargers, their inverter and anything else they want.

The PWM5 solar charge controller, control box (left) and load box (right). Excuse the tape, we still have something to tweak in that box.

The final task for today was to discuss the logistics of our set up in Malembo which will occur this week. This is the first real branch for the Lwemodde youth group. It should be a great service to that town and a very large income generating asset to the youth group. Hopefully local people from the town latch on to this enterprise and from a similar community of people enthusiastic about technology. We decided that to send both solar panels and so more mounting wood had to be cut, drilled and varnished.

Sawing wood was apparently so interesting that everyone had to see it.

The week's plan is to spend Tuesday explaining the system and building the power distribution box, Wednesday will be spent mounting the solar panels, Thursday will be connecting and explaining the system and Friday will be signing up our first clients. This week is going to be entrepreneurship on steroids. Possibly the fastest electricity grid ever built…