For the estimated 80 million refugees, energy access is a significant challenge owing to difficulties in infrastructure development in camps. Energy is needed for lighting, communication and in particular cooking. Cooking requires fuels and it tends to fall on women and children to collect firewood. Therefore, this research is about developing an energy system that can meet the basic energy requirements for a family in rural off-grid or humanitarian contexts.A literature review was undertaken to assess the range of interventions already taking place for example, solar home systems. This led to a systemic development process for designing the device. Subsequently, a portable photovoltaic power station has been developed to meet the energy needs of a family in refugee or other contexts. This consists of a 360W PV module, 25.6V 75Ah lithium-iron-phosphate battery rated at 20A (500W), MPPT charge controller, breakers, connectors, and an enclosure, as well as USB lights and two cooking appliances.The system has been laboratory tested to ensure it delivers the power requirements for cooking and other services. Furthermore, typical meals have been cooked with different food loads. The next steps are a field trial in which 60 pilot systems will be during 2022.
Off-grid renewable energy electricity generation is a proven solution to meeting energy needs in situations such as a refugee camp and communities with no access to modern energy services. To overcome the problem of intermittence that is inherent in renewable energy resources, battery energy storage is used to store excess energy and release it when the renewable resource is insufficient. However, batteries, not only have a high upfront cost but are reported to be the leading cause of failure in renewable electricity generation systems. These are the major challenges facing low income countries in their efforts to increase access to clean energy. The situation requires a blend of localised solutions including meaningful battery testing that goes beyond measuring open circuit voltage which can only provide very limited information about performance and longevity of the batteries. Traditionally, battery test systems are expensive to buy, making it difficult for developing nations to actively participate in research by testing battery performance as well as help with detecting poor quality products that typically fail more quickly than expected. In this work, a low-cost battery test system was designed, developed, and implemented for lifecycle testing of three batteries at the same time.
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