In Nigeria and many developing countries, power outage is a major problem. However, there are many technologies that can help to mitigate this problem, let’s look at some of them:
Car Powering the House
Our electricity bills this days can be a snag, getting more annoying after a hard day’s work only to get back home with no light, with the Nissan leaf an innovation that is set to not only reduce carbon emission but also help in powering up the home, Nissan LEAF lithium-ion battery can power up the house and at the same time getting charged with the help of the of a PCS (Power Control System) connected to the household’s distribution board that converts power from the high DC of the car to 200v AC for the house and vice-versa. One thing we love about this is that the Leaf and e-NV200 vans can be used as mobile power station where there is low power supply or even disaster hit areas for emergency power.
Salt Solute Lamp
Engineer Aisa Mijeno, a Filipino inventor after living with the people of Butbut (in her country) for some time discovered that they all depend on the moon light or kerosene lamp to run their night activities so she decided to come up with an idea to help them spend less and save more by designing a led lamp powered by a glass of water mixed with two tea spoon of salt capable of lasting 8 hours straight up for about six months before changing the anode. This also come with a USB port used for changing portable devices such as phones and mp3. We definitely need this to be mass produced in Nigeria, ‘let there be light”, we plead.
Garbage Electricity
The tons of waste measured annually across the globe is so high that some even decide to ship them down to lesser developed countries. With the advance in technology, waste is no longer a thing of err… waste but a great source of energy in the power sector. Take for example, Covanta Energy Corporation, having a plant that burns up every waste thrown on the streets of Alexandria and Arlington, Virginia, and some parts of the District of Columbia and Maryland producing 23 megawatts of electricity capable of powering 20,000 homes, isn’t that an impressive one?
Water Generator
With just 4 gallon of an average tap water your house is on a light up all with the help of an emissionless generator that produces up to 5000 watts of power for straight 4 hours, by turning on the start button this kicks the battery, pump and turbine to a start, this was solely designed for emergency purpose and can be used inside a room due to the fact that is a “No fume No poison” device with 50% less noise making compare to the normal fossil powered ones. All the maintenance needed is draining and spraying.
Solar Powered Generator
Unlike a solar system that requires big time installation a solar generator is a DIY device that could come portable or big depending on its capacity or your wants. This kind of generator depends on the sun to get fueled having an inbuilt battery, inverter to be used on at any point in time, some of this generators comes with external portable connectors that allows you to connect your devices like your phone without being connected to the house and this is awesome for camping and emergency power-up.
Solar Power System
Countries like India, China and the U.S.A are already taking the lead globally when it come to the investment into renewable energy. Africa which is the hottest continent on the planet is not doing so much when it comes to renewable energy but the fact is that if we decide to invest in solar power, we will not need as much of a wide area compared to the less hot continents and this kind of power generator could be installed anywhere like our home which may be expensive initially but cheaper in the years ahead when you compare with the fossil fuel generators.
Powerwall Batteries
A kind of flat battery that hangs on your wall carrying charges of up to 10kwh but the new designs go as far as 14kwh getting its power from the sun or a power grid. it comes with a preinstalled cooler to regulate the temperature. Although many companies are now diving into the production of powerwalls with Tesla taking lead, this power pack allows you to monitor your power usage over a mobile app through the internet. The main idea of this invention is to power the world with solar power in a small system.
These are some inventions and technologies that we can use to reduce or eliminate the effect of poor electricity supply and outages in Nigeria and other developing countries. Investors, government and individuals can take steps to make them accessible to a large part of our population thereby improving productivity, security and general quality of life.