An old concept came to mind that I haven’t given much thought in a few years. COST of LAMP = LED + SOLAR + BATTERY + CASE + CIRCUIT Seems like a simple enough formula, right? Someone had referenced this formula in a study a while ago, I think it may have been Arne Jacobsen [...]
Another Kickstarter Project About Microsolar – Automation this Time
The time is nigh for the tide of automation in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) of China, where a large portion of the world’s electronics, including many of the world’s prominent micro-solar companies have hitherto (e.g. before 2012) based their manufacturing. When I visited China for a month earlier this year – what struck me as being [...]
The Electrification Needs of the Rural World
In many developing countries, rural electrification is a growing problem where the distant location and low population of such areas makes it infeasible to connect them to the main grid system. Up till 2010, 1.6 billion people in the developing world did not have access to electricity in their homes, which is around a quarter of the [...]
How the Fable of the Old Granny and the Apple Helps Understand LEDs
To start off our article today we have an little-known fable which might help you think about how the world of product quality works – especially as it pertains to LEDs. Once upon a time, a sweet old grandma went down to the town market to buy some groceries. It was a beautiful, bright fall [...]
Now Lighting Africa Is Training Technicians – Questions On How the, “Global Micro-Solar Business Model,” Is Being Shaped?
Lighting Africa is now getting into the business of training technicians, according to its website today. Lighting Africa has begun training first-line technicians to provide after-sales service and maintenance to solar lighting products retailing in Kenya and Ghana. The program will train more than 100 technicians to be based in 10 of Kenya’s major towns, [...]
The Onion: 300 Million Without Power in India After Restoration of Power Grid
A real story from the joke newspaper The Onion.
Seemingly Mysterious New Off-Grid Industry Association, GOGLA Launched
According to the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association’s (GOGLA) website, during some of the golden days of solar-LED lamp development, at the May 2010 Lighting Africa conference in Nairobi, a Green Paper was brought around and signed by 21 different companies engaged in the space. In February 2011, a memorandum of understanding was signed and GOGLA was born. Since then, [...]
Hour-by-Hour Breakdown of History’s Greatest Power Outage
Indian online news platform First Post has an intriguing breakdown of the second, larger power outage which occured across much of India for the majority of the day on July 31st, 2012. Narrative of the Great Power Outage from First Post Reading the post from the bottom up is an interesting breakdown of a typical power outage [...]
Robot Installed Solar Panels Cut Costs by Up to 50%
Companies in Germany are developing robots designed to install power plant-grade solar panels along horizontal tracks. Let’s hope we don’t have a modern day John Henry over-exert himself trying to beat this machine .
Call For Information on Adverse Health-Effects of Kerosene Smoke
Evan Mills from the Lumina Project is collecting information about the adverse health-effects of kerosene for the Lighting Africa 2012 Conference in Dakar, Senegal.
