Solar energy provides a clean, sustainable, and reliable electrical source. Yet solar power is expensive and in the developing world, buyers often do not have the ability to purchase these systems. So they buy dirty, unreliable, but cheap petrol and diesel generators instead.

Looking for a new solar power

The Solar for All initiative wants to revolutionize this situation by creating systemic change in the entire solar PV value chain and related financial services so solar energy can be affordable to the 1.6 billion people without access to electricity. They'll achieve that change with three interlocking efforts:

1. $250,000 for New Solar Power Designs
Solar For All is sponsoring a design contest for manufacturers and PV system integrators to develop a "perfectly" designed and adapted solar PV system for rural electrification. The winner receiving a $250,000 investment by Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation.

2. $100 Million for Solar Investments & Financing
The Solar for All investment fund will support the entire solar ecosystem - raw material supply to the production of wafers, PV cells, solar panels, and other components - to make solar energy systems and low energy appliances available and affordable to lower income communities. It also will have financing for social enterprise distributors and end users.

3. Solar Industry Capacity Building
Solar for All is not stopping at chaining the solar power equipment or its financing, they also want to aggregate off-grid PV distributors to create a unified voice for them in industry, government and international development organizations.

Apply to Win Today!

The "Solar for All" contest is now open. "Solar for All" is looking for organizations that demonstrate either:

1. Innovative PV off-grid power supply solutions for low-income end-users in developing countries. These may be solar home systems, mini-grids, hybrid solutions or PV systems with special applications as long as they produce AC or DC power and are focused on end-users.
2. Market-based approaches with business plans, market penetration strategies, or end-user financing - applicants may focus on one or on several of these aspects.

Apply today and good luck improving PV systems and the financing schemes to purchase them.

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At this year's Development Marketplace 2009 (DM2009) finalist event at the World Bank, I was asked a challenging question: What's the impact of ICT on climate change?

Of course, information and communication technologies help people learn about climate change and share ideas and responses, but ICT actually has a greater, and more direct impact than you might imagine. According to Gartner:

The global information and communications technology (ICT) industry accounts for approximately 2 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a figure equivalent to aviation, according to a new estimate by Gartner, Inc. Despite the overall environmental value of IT, Gartner believes this is unsustainable.

We at Inveneo agree - the developing world cannot continue to rely on dirty and expensive fossil fueled gasoline and diesel generators for the electrical power to run communication equipment.

Wayan Vota's DM2009 interview

That's why I answered the question like this:

@Inveneo's climate change impact: reducing reliance on diesel generators w/ energy efficient computing & access to green knowledge

How do we do that? By certifying and deploying energy efficient computers that are specifically designed to operate on renewable energies like wind and solar power. That's also why we certify Power Partners in addition to ICT Partners - clean electricity is just as important as the information it facilitates.

So the next time you are thinking about ICT deployment, especially in a rural or undeserved area where electrical power is an issue, remember that you do have a choice. You can reduce the impact of climate change directly and immediately, even before the community develops an awareness of global warming. When you choose renewable energy sources, not fossil fuels, to power your knowledge sharing ICTs.

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Buying solar power equipment for Africa is often a challenge. First, the USA runs on 110V, so most of the equipment here will not work with the 220V standard common to African electrical systems. Then, shipping to you, then to Africa often vastly increases costs. Last but not least, is the long reach of 419.

If you are trying to buy the Xantrex TR Series 1524-230-50 Inverter/Charger, a very common inverter for solar power deployments, you'll find few companies willing to ship overnight. Most require a day's wait between payment and shipment. Why?

The Long Reach of 419

The Xantrex TR1524 is often the target of online scams. Fake or stolen credit cards are used to buy it for overnight shipment, getting it delivered before the credit card companies or solar equipment distributors can stop delivery.

In fact, several dealers I called recently said that the 1524-230-50 model is the most common target of such thieves. To the point that any request for it raises alarms.

Yet another example of how honest commerce is degraded by 419 scams.

In a New York Times article Bringing Solar Power to Africa’s Poor, there is a great quote on how to bring sustainable solar power to Africa:

SolarAid does not give away its micro-solar kits. "It’s not a hand out," Ms. Bliss said. "We want to encourage a viable trade. Solar has a huge future here, and anyone we have trained with solar skills has a good chance of finding employment. We also encourage distributors to take solar products to rural villages."

Here's a video of a similar organization, Solar Energy Foundation:

Here is an interesting video from the Barefoot College solar program in which they've trained illiterate women from African villages to be solar engineers for their communities in just 6 months:

Barefoot College makes four key points about their program model:

1. Work with the community to make sure they are willing to accept the woman as a technician before she travels to India for the training
2. Do not include "paper certified" technicians in the process, they cannot be seen as equals by the communities or the local technicians
3. No certificates - its the community that certifies technicians. Certificates only promote leaving communities for city jobs.
4. Partnership models work in rural areas - the government or donor buys the initial solar equipment and the community pays technician for ongoing maintenance

Using the numbers in the video of 60 women trained and 40 villages solar electrified for $1.4 million, or $35,000 per village, I would say that the Barefoot Engineers have a pretty cost effective program. I would only suggest that training the women in Africa, rather than flying them to India, might even generate a greater cost/benefit scale.

While there is an explosive growth of mobile phone usage in Africa, there has not been a corresponding growth in the national electric grid to support these phones. In Kenya, there are more than 17 million cell phone subscribers but only 1.3 million have access to constant electricity.

So how can entrepreneurs fill the gap between the demand for mobile phone recharging and the limited supply of grid electricity?

Battery-based mobile phone charging

At the most basic level, small-scale entrepreneurs have been devising ad hoc mobile phone recharging solutions that span the gamut from pedal-power electricity generation to many homemade dry cell battery powered systems.

The best are recharging stations that take the ubiquitous 12 Volt car battery and wire a number of phone chargers to it for community usage. Yet these stations are still ad hoc, with no standardization or scalability of the solution, which is a market opportunity.

Solar powered handset solutions

Big mobile phone operators are looking at that opportunity with solar powered handsets. Safaricom has just introduced solar powered cell phones that retail at only Kes. 2,999 ($40 USD).

While this phone is locked to the Safaricom network, one 8 hour charge lasts for a several days and as an added bonus, its made with all recycled materials.

Solar power business opportunity

It also gives me an idea for another business opportunity in Africa. I can see an African entrepreneur designing a simple yet durable solar power recharge station.

Imagine a solar panel and change controller designed specifically to sit atop and recharge a 12V battery under African conditions. Incorporating voltage meters and other electrical indicators it would be a distinct advantage over the current charge status guesswork.

Models for different countries would have alignment instructions just for their geo-solar conditions, and would come with ports for all the major mobile phones recharging adapters. The whole unit would be mall enough for a single person to carry - the entrepreneur who would sell charge time for 12V battery owners.

During a Inveneo Business Training, we interviewed Sam Okwiri about his new solar power company, Lebra Solar Technologies:

Sam, who used to work for WinAfrique, has started Lebra Solar Technologies to satisfy the power needs of Kenya. With rolling power outages due to reduced KenGen capacity, Sam has chosen a great time to offer his services.

His company is currently in the queue to become a Inveneo Certified ICT Partner.

It's our learned opinion that the best power source for rural ICT implementations is solar panels feeding deep-cycle batteries. But solar is expensive, $10-14 per Watt installed (see Mat Berg's Solar Calculator), so we're excited by any technology advances that can reduce initial costs.

Solar panel maintenance

Currently, the Economist reports on two advances that can give us more competitive solar power production.

Use Less Silicon

GreenSun Energy, has figured out how to diffuse light sideways to the edges of solar panels. This means that their solar panels only need silicon at the outer edges of the glass plates. GreenSun Energy does this by coating the glass with a combination of dyes and sprinkling it with metal nano particles.

Don't Use Any Silicon

3GSolar skips silicon altogether, using "dye-sensitized" solar cells with titanium dioxide and ruthenium dye molecules to generate electricity via sunlight. This process is not as efficient as silicon-based methods, but dye-sensitized cells are much cheaper to make.

Wash Whatever You Have

From the solar-powered Googleplex, we learn that washing solar panels has a significant impact on performance.

Google has flat and tilted solar panels on their offices in Silicon Valley, and after analyzing the power output they've come to an obvious conclusion. Their tilted panels are washed enough by rain, but flat solar panels need additional cleaning. In fact, washing flat panels can doubled energy output overnight.

Tilt It When Away From Equator

Google also found that tilting solar panels increased performance of panels at 37° North. With a 15° tilt, solar panel produce more electricity than flat panels. Add in the rain washing effects, and solar panel tilt is a recommended installation action.

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Matt Berg, a longtime friend of Inveneo, has published his off-grid solar calculator for public use. Its an excel-based toolkit to help with cost and design estimates when you are in the planning stages:

• Solar Toolkit - excel based solar calculator. Last updated 05.03.09. Please see instructions for proper usage.
• Solar Radiation Chart - useful for estimating peak solar of your location (# hours of day of strong sunlight)
• Solar Radiation Chart 2 - includes optimal PV inclination angles for facing the sun

Note that Matt says this is NOT intended to replace getting a detailed power estimate from a local solar expert who can best take in account the local conditions.

How far can you take wireless technologies in an urban environment? Kenya Data Networks, has designed a fully independent shipping center for G4S, a Kenyan courier company and KDN representative Norbert gives us a tour:

Note that the shipping center is completely self-sufficient and free of any terrestrial services- from electricity to Internet provision. Solar panels on the roof of the shipping center power a low-power Inveneo computer, which connects to the G4S server via KDN's WiMax Internet service.