Report: Environmental life cycle analysis of remote solar home systems.

[NNadir]

This report compares two types of solar home systems with using diesel electricity or kerosene lamps (for lighting) for remote (off grid) power systems.

http://www.chem.uu.nl/nws/www/publica/e2000-15.pdf The file type apparently does not allow for text cutting and pasting, although text searching is available.

The report dates from 2000 and does not address any technological improvements as may have been instituted in the last 5 years.

The report is some 89 pages long, and rather detailed, so I'll help readers to cut to the chase: The conclusions can be found in beginning in section 6.2.

The type of data analyzed include the following impacts: Greenhouse gas emission, ozone, eutrophication, acidification, heavy metals, carcinogenicity, winter smog, summer smog, energy and solid waste loads.

Not to spoil the punchline, but the both solar systems do better than the kerosene lamps over periods shorter than 2 decades.

Note that this analysis does NOT apply to grid connected solar systems, and therefore one should be careful when reading too much into it. All existing power grid connected home renewable systems, for those who can afford them, (and those who do not need to do greater environmental damage by installing them) in my opinion anyway, are profoundly better than using fossil fuels. These systems depend on batteries since, though it may come as a surprise to some, solar power is generally not available at night.

[savemefromdumbya]

1. we are trying to change to solar power

I doubt we will get planning permission for the windmill! The setup cost is the problem.

[NNadir]

2. Residential or public? n/t

[savemefromdumbya]

4. in this case residential

[NNadir]

7. I suspect you are not alone in this.

I have noticed only one solar system in my (largely upscale) area: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x34285

[phantom power]

3. According to 6.7 ...

The benefit over kerosene is immediate, and the benefit over diesel-generator is over 10-20 years.

[NNadir]

5. That is comforting.

One wonders why remote rural people have not all installed solar systems.

Sometimes I have the notion that many of the potential customers for these systems are not really too attached to risk analysis or environmental accounting. Many of them, I think, are merely trying to stay alive, and not always with great success rates.

None of the systems investigated, I note, are risk free.

[phantom power]

6. There's environmental benefits, and then there's affordability...

[spun_in_montana]

8. I have only solar at our place

in Columbus, Mt., its not so much we wanted "off the grid" as it was way too much money to get power up to the house.
When I went "shopping" though, I found that by making many of the interconnects and other small fixtures myself, I could save a bundle over the "kits" provided by retailers.
In the end, we spent 2600.00 plus 1300.00 for a very efficient propane refridgerator.
Even with 6 inches of snow on the array, it still will produce 400 watts!
If your thinking of solar, look into hiring a handy engineer type to get around all of the 'add ons" that run the cost of initial installation up.
We saved 4000.00 doing just that.
Oh, and think about wiring the house twice, we did as it cut down the expense of the inverter. All of the lights are straight 12 volt and run directly off the battery bank. AC from the inverter runs through the other set for amplifiers and computers.
Cant be handy-be handsome! Or whatever Red Green says.

[400Years]

9. good move on the wiring scheme

You avoid the loss due to inverter efficiency on the dc to ac conversion.

Smart thinking.

[NNadir]

10. What kind of batteries do you have?

I didn't know propane refrigerators were even made. In any case, they are not solar.

[spun_in_montana]

13. We got ours from

Lehmans in Ohio, we went with propane because even the "efficient" fridges needed a much larger inverter and solar array which would have doubled the cost of solar.
The first battery bank were just standard 12 deep cycle, wired in series, 10 of them, they performed well for 4 years and then the weather got to them. We have six volt batteries now, 22, wired in parallel for 12 volt.
Lowes had 12 volt light bulbs that fit everday fixtures.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. As an aside, you can get purlely solar fridges...

...They work on the same principal (gas absorbtion) as your propane fridge but use a solar collector to heat the ammonia, rather than a gas burner.

[jpak]

11. There are a lot of PV lanterns on the market for ~$100-200 US...

http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/servlet/display/product/detail/29023

http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/servlet/display/product/detail/31877

and small portable PV systems for $400-1900 US...

http://www.siliconsolar.com/shop/catalog/Large-Portable-Solar-Power-Systems-p-5.html

http://www.solarsense.com/Products/1-Complete_Systems/3-NOMAD_1500/NOMAD_1500.html

http://www.solarsense.com/Products/1-Complete_Systems/3-NOMAD_1500/NOMAD_1500.html

and do-gooders that manufacture PV modules locally in developing countries...

http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/partners/fenix2.html

Nuclear power is not an option for billions of rural poor that lack access to national electrical grids. With the skyrocketing cost kerosene and diesel fuel, PV is the only sustainable option for electrical lighting and small appliance operation in developing countries.

...and sustainable local microbanks can make them affordable to all...

[NNadir]

14. Two words: India, China.

These are poor countries that are now becoming superpowers. They seem not to agree with this brilliant analysis of their energy needs.

Both countries have aggressive programs to expand their nuclear capacity, and both countries heavily rely on coal, the fuel that is slowly killing most of the earth.

I note that by itself Asia produces more nuclear energy that the entire world produces in all renewable technologies combined. As always I note that solar PV capacity is a very, very, small portion of that quantity.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table62.xls

The entire nation of India produces 4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity by all renewable means, if one excludes hydroelectric power, a renewable capacity that happens to be real. The country's electrical consumption meanwhile is 510 billion kilowatt-hours. I'll bet if you look at this renewable capacity, you will find that all but the tiniest of that tiniest fraction is not solar electricity. More likely it is just burning stuff, like garbage, and the local forests.

I have been to India. I really don't think that the slums of Mumbai have too many people who have the quantity of $100-200 living in them. The poverty is in fact, crushing, and no one who has really seen it can ever forget it. I know I can't. In fact, there are undoubtedly some people in those slums who will see that quantity of money in one place in their entire lives. One understands immediately that Westerners with their heads up their asses neither see nor care about these people, but nonetheless they are real and they are human beings.

"Only" 100-200 hundred dollars indeed. http://www.finfacts.com/biz10/globalworldincomepercapita.htm

That said, India (which is culturally like a rich western country contained inside a much larger massively impoverished country) has an extensive electrical grid. One can go into small villages and see power lines readily available. Not everyone, of course, is connected to this grid (although a good deal of "pirating" seems to go on) but it is there.

[jpak]

15. Three words: LOL

Hundreds of millions of rural poor in both India and China currently lack access to their national grids.

New nuclear capacity in either country will not benefit these people - that power will be distributed to cities and factories.

Most of those people won't see one watt (mystical or otherwise) of nuclear electricity.

China does have a progam to bring PV and small wind turbines into rural villiages, however.

Nice try though....

[phantom power]

17. According to this write-up...

97% of homes in China are already on the grid. So their rural electriciation project is addressing the remaining 3%. Which for a country of 1.3 billion people, is still rather a lot of homes. Percentage-wise, it's relatively small. They do appear to be focusing on wind and solar, which makes sense for remote locations. They seem to be constructing mini-grids. An independent electric grid local to a village.

http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/Electrification.htm

[jpak]

19. According to this one, 70-100 million Chinese lack access to electricity

THE USE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS FOR RURAL ELECTRIFICATION IN NORTHWESTERN CHINA

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:sJmWaskNNsYJ:www.pnl.gov/china/vienna98.pdf+rural+electrification+in+China&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

<snip>

Approximately 70% of China's 1.2 billion population
with the MOA and other agencies to promote rural
live in rural areas. Of this rural population, Chinese agencies
have reported that 70 to 100 million people have no access
to electricity in terms of proximity to an electrical grid <1>. A
large number of these people also do not have near-term
prospects of obtaining electricity through grid extension
because of the high costs of building transmission lines to
remote locations. There is also a large rural population
throughout China, which is difficult to quantify, that live in
of farmland and grasslands. Annual incomes are generated
mainly by farming and ranching, with ranching dominated by
raising sheep. Annual household incomes fall in the range of
other access problems.

<snip>

[phantom power]

20. I would say both sources are consistent.

70 million is about 5% of 1.3 billion. It's not hard to imagine 5% of their population living in 3% of the housing. Especially since it's probably the poorest 5%.

[poopfuel]

18. micropower worth a look

microturbine cogenerators. Google 'em.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5226621-107983,00.html

[skids]

21. There's a report on lanterns here:

...though I don't know what they managed to screw up engineering-wise to kill off the batteries so soon. Properly sized they should get better life than that.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=40172

[One_Life_To_Give]

12. Have you visited "otherpower.com"?

Their solutions are not the most elegant, but they do cut costs.

They also point out that while their homes don't have all the conveniences. When you spend time without any. Your view of what is really necessary changes.