Distributed Renewable
Energy Access (DREA)
A custom solar solution for SELCO Foundation's Healthcare team.
Background
In the resource-limited regions of developing countries, energy-access is equivalent to poverty, hunger, illiteracy , and gender inequalities. In my Distributed Renewable Energy Access class, three PhD students from NYU's Tandon and I worked with members of the SELCO Foundation's healthcare team (a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Bangalore dedicated to alleviating poverty through sustainable energy and enterprises) to identify and develop sustainable energy solutions for their healthcare team.
One of the SELCO healthcare team's primary services is delivering a variety of medical kits to rural areas of India that don't have regular access to hospitals, doctors or general healthcare services. Those kits rely mostly on AA & AAA batteries to power them. This was an issue for a multitude of reasons: the cost of the batteries add up, they regularly run out, and they're unsustainable.
One of the SELCO healthcare team's primary services is delivering a variety of medical kits to rural areas of India that don't have regular access to hospitals, doctors or general healthcare services. Those kits rely mostly on AA & AAA batteries to power them. This was an issue for a multitude of reasons: the cost of the batteries add up, they regularly run out, and they're unsustainable.
Solution
The solution we came up with is a solar powered charging station, located at one of the healthcare workers' homes, that converts solar energy into electrical energy to charge an array of AA and AAA batteries as well as a portable power bank. The charge of the batteries would be monitored by a sensor and pushed to a server so the healthcare workers could check on the battery charging status remotely, making their trips more efficient. Ideally, there would be several of these stations located throughout different parts of their targeted regions.
I developed a prototype where the solar panel is attached to a Voltaic battery cell, which in turn is connected to a current sensor (INA219B chip from adafruit that measures the high side voltage and DC current draw over I2C with 1% precision). The current sensor measures the battery current to monitor the battery charge status, which is sent to a server (hosted by Shiftr.io).
The solar powered charging station is a reliable, clean, and cost efficient way of ensuring the batteries are fully charged and ready for use.
I developed a prototype where the solar panel is attached to a Voltaic battery cell, which in turn is connected to a current sensor (INA219B chip from adafruit that measures the high side voltage and DC current draw over I2C with 1% precision). The current sensor measures the battery current to monitor the battery charge status, which is sent to a server (hosted by Shiftr.io).
The solar powered charging station is a reliable, clean, and cost efficient way of ensuring the batteries are fully charged and ready for use.
Full Documentation
Our project included a variety of materials including a functioning prototype, a comprehensive energy analysis, user research including a customer survey, a market scenario analysis, a health and safety guide and more.
