We had an interesting meeting with researcer D. Sc. (Tech.) Jukka Paatero on the 20th March. According to Mr. Paatero, the best way to reach our objectives (a cost-efficient and self-sustainable energy system for Rock Village) would probably be a hybrid system.
So far, we have been dealing with three possible renewable energy solutions being solar, wind and bio. However, today we learned that going solely with solar would be very expensive. Also, converting bio to electricity is expensive, and it would be better to use bio for cooking etc. Just as we have been discussing. As the location is good for using wind energy, this would probably be the best solution for reaching our goals.
Mr. Paatero suggested we would do a comparison between two possible solutions. One with a wind-grid-hybrid and an other with a totally independent wind-diesel-hybrid. Good examples of wind-diesel-hybrids can be found for example in Alaska. This is something we will now be looking more deepely into.
According to Mr. Paatero, connection to grid could be a good solution as it is rather close and could be built quite cheaply (assisted by the people themselves). Also, a windfarm can also be easily and cheaply built by the people themselves. Examples of this can be found for example in Africa. In a self-built system the efficiency is somewhat lower, but it’s a cost-efficient solution.
Mr. Paatero had many interesting examples of various possibilities for reducing energy need in Rock Village. We could, for example, think about solar cookers, water-bottle-lighters for distributing sun light indoors, solar driers etc. In remote and rural areas, many innovative solutions have been developed. We will now look more deepely into the themes and examples given by Mr. Paatero and meet next time on Thursday 22th March.
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