Solar Lessons

Cool and Not COol

In news that will surprise no one, setting up a solar powered school is hard!  We are already making some mistakes and learning lessons.

Take the much vaunted solar system for example.  The thing has been driving me nuts over the last few days.

The damn battery just would not charge up.  Even a measly cell phone charge proved too much for it.

So where was the problem?  Was it the battery? The panels? The solar controller? The inverter? The cabling?  The African sun being too cold?

At one point or another, I had myself convinced that it was at least one of those things.  Well, except for the African sun being too cold.

Turns out it was none of those things.

Remember back here when I watched the Champions’ League final with the locals via a solar-powered TV?

Turns out that I had drained too much power from the battery.  There is a certain minimum voltage that you just shouldn’t go below and I went under it.  This meant that the resistance of the battery became too high for the solar panels to effectively recharge the battery.  It would have eventually got there, but it would have taken months.

So I had to lug the extremely heavy battery all the way to Mbale to have someone recharge it for me.

All is well now!