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It's a safe bet that most people who are reading this are used to living no fewer than a few footsteps away from a lightswitch or electric socket. For almost all of us, the most frequent blackout we have to deal with is a when our smart phones go dark after a long session of Angry Birds. In fact, there are some people who dream of living off the grid — whether that means camping out in a national park or investing in distributed generation equipment for the home.
But as many as a quarter of the world's population live without easy access to grid-connected electricity, according to Scientific American. To address problems such as unemployment, poverty, education and malnutrition, that remaining 25 percent of humanity without power needs innovative solutions that address off-grid life.
I spoke recently with Dr. Al Malouf of NineSigma, which styles itself as an "open innovation services provider." The organization works with companies like Kraft Foods, Unilever, Philips, L'Oreal and others to develop these innovations.
One such partnership is the LAUNCH program, a consortium that includes the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), NASA, Nike and others. The LAUNCH effort aims to develop ten "game-changing" solutions for those who live without adequate access to electricity, heating and cooling, water and other basic needs.
LAUNCH recently identified ten entrepreneurs with ten good ideas in the hopes that their technologies could be developed and deployed to those who need them.
"There was a focus on third world or developing world, as well as the developed world. A lot of our partners had techs that would benefit places in rural Africa that might not even be connected to the grid," Malouf said. "About 80 percent of the people in Africa own cell phones, but fewer than that are connected to the grid. So a big challenge for them is where to charge their cell phone that doesn't involve walking ten miles."
When choosing which energy entrepreneurs to approach for submissions, Malouf said his organization had to stick with technologies that work on the distributed energy level or smaller, as utility-scale, grid-connected technologies.
One example of a highly distributed power source now approved by LAUNCH is the Hydrovolts hydrokinetic mini-turbine. The unit is small enough to take advantage of the potential energy of flowing water just about anywhere it can be found.
"You can just throw these things into the canals. They can work in shallow water, they right themselves automatically and they can power pumps and drive gates within the canal system," he said. "It's a nice way of capturing the kinetic energy of the water to do work in the area."
The technology is scalable too, in that you can fasten three or four of the units together to produce a greater amount of power, if needed.
The Solanterns Initiative aims to replace a million dirty, inefficient kerosene lanterns in Kenya with solar powered LED lights.
"Using kerosene lamps, the problem is the quality of light is poor and they generate indoor pollution, which can lead to lung diseases — especially in young children," he said. "With better quality light, businesses can stay open longer after dark and students can learn better in school."
The devices, when charged up by the sun, can also provide enough juice to charge up a cell phone — eliminating the need to travel to a town center for a working electricity source.
NanoTune Technologies, also chosen by LAUNCH, developed a new ultracapacitor that they claim offers five to seven times greater energy storage technology than conventional capacitors.
"They can't divulge exactly what the technology is, but they think the tech might be able to replace conventional batteries," he said, adding that the ultracapacitors charge quickly, and might one day become a good storage device for wind or solar power — eliminating the need for a bulkier battery bank.
Gram Power's innovation is a microgrid technology that offers pre-paid, intelligently metered power with both AC and DC voltage outputs as well as battery backup at the household level.
"This is a smart DC grid — a way to power a house with a very small power supply," he said, adding that the innovation includes a business model for delivering this pre-paid power source to rural people and their dwellings.
"They will plug these battery packs into this smart grid system that is installed in the house. It works on a prepaid, weekly basis. An affordable and realistic way for rural people to have high quality lighting and places to charge their cell phones," he said.
Point Source Power came up with a fuel cell technology that could allow people living off the grid to charge a cell phone as they cook their dinner — with the same heat they use to cook that dinner.
"This uses biomass to create electricity. It's a small fuel cell, driven by heat. Most of these villagers use a fire pit to cook their food, so they developed a fuel cell that is totally sealed. The heat from the cookstove will generate a small amount of electricity when the cell is thrown into the burning fuel — enough power to charge a cell phone," he said.
You can read more about these and other technologies backed by LAUNCH at their website.
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