Solartech International from Luxembourg has released a Portable Solar panel designed for use in sub saharan Africa, which it claims can free villagers from the tyranny of darkness or reliance on dirty and increasingly expensive kerosene. The unit is the size of a shipping container and will power a village of 1,500 inhabitants.
The unit stores enough energy to deliver power evenly over a 24 hour period regardless of the weather.
By delivering the solar power station as a complete unit designed for a small community, the system avoids the infrastructure cost of building an electricity grid. Individual units can be attached to high energy use buildings like hospitals and backed up by other forms of generation.
There are a number of companies in Europe under the brand SolarTec. Solar Tec AG in Germany uses solar concentrating technology, such as that pioneered by Green and Gold Energy in Australia. Green and GoldEnergy won the ABC television program New Inventors in 2005 for their original suncube and were featured on the first ever Generator here on Bay FM.
The concentrator focuses the sun on a smaller area, making more efficient use of the photovoltaic cells that convert the sun's energy into electricity and reducing costs. By using fresnel lenses, similar to the plastic lenses available for rear windows of cars, the unit can be manufactured very cheaply.
It does not appear that this technology is being used in the portable unit being shipped to African villages.
A range of portable solar solutions are now available, ranging from units designed for camping and other traveling applications, through to semi-permanent installations that need to be able to be moved when necessary.
The Generator's own Malcolm McKenzie has developed one such solution using thin film panels that fold up into a flat pack that can fit into a car boot.
