Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: The SolSource 3-in-1: A Comprehensive Decentralized Solar Energy Platform
EPA Grant Number: SU834292Title: The SolSource 3-in-1: A Comprehensive Decentralized Solar Energy Platform
Investigators: Spengler, John D. , Frank, Scot G. , Wilson, David Gordon , Powers, Catlin Ishihara , Qian, Amy , Jia, Huaze , Ezzati, Majid , Ram, Rajeev , Amatya, Reja , Kulper, Sloan , Zhang, Wendi , Tai, Xiamao , Yang, Xudong
Institution: Wellesley College
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: August 15, 2009 through August 1, 2010
Project Amount: $10,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2009) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities , Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Challenge Area - Air Quality
Objective:
Globally, more than 2.5 billion people depend on solid biomass fuels for cooking, heating, and lighting (WHO, 2006). These fuels cause indoor air pollution, contribute to climate change, and reduce educational opportunities for girls, who are expected to spend long hours collecting wood, dung, and crop residues while their male counterparts attend school or work.
For the past 4 years, we have worked with villagers in the Himalayan region of Western China to design the SolSource 3-in-1, a novel solar energy device that addresses these issues by providing low-cost access to clean energy for cooking, heating, and electricity generation.
Our objective is to develop a comprehensive decentralized solar energy platform applicable within both rural and urban contexts in the Himalayan region and beyond.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
On our 10th iteration of the SolSource 3-in-1, we have succeeded in producing a light-weight (6 kg), foldable solar concentrator with high power output and durable, low-cost, and portable electricity generating and heating systems. These design aspects allow the SolSource 3-in-1 to reach off-road communities where traditional solar cookers and solar panels cannot.
During Phase I, we worked with 20 communities—10 agricultural and 10 nomadic—to field-test the SolSource. A total of nearly 4,000 people were introduced to the SolSource, four families participated in 1- to 3-month, active-use testing, and one family is participating in a 6-month user test.
Our projections based on the five households where we conducted 1- to 3-month field-tests indicate that the SolSource 3-in-1 will reduce household fuel-use by approximately 50%, equating to average emissions reductions of 31.4 tCO2eq/family/year and 71,100 g CO/family/year.
Thermal analysis of the SolSource components indicated high power output, but poor energy retention within the pot. The SolSource concentrator produced a greater initial power output than commercial competitors, but suffered large convective losses due to high wind speeds and poor insulation of cooking pots. Our calculations indicate that blackened, insulated pots will reduce convective losses by more than two-thirds, allowing the SolSource concentrator to sustain power delivery greater than its commercial competitors.
Our 20W thermo-electric generator was able to power lights and a small DC motor during field tests, but the initial design proved too complicated and easily breakable. Redesigning to reduce the complexity and number of parts yielded good results.
Participants in our field-tests liked the initial idea of a heat transfer system to replace their existing smoke-heated bed systems, but thought that the installation process was too intrusive. Instead, they preferred our alternative heating option, HeatSource Textiles, which employ a low-cost mixture of locally available phase-change materials to provide sustained personal heating at sub-zero temperatures. Villagers who tried using these textiles were impressed by the thermal regulation they conferred.
In order to evaluate the impact of the SolSource 3-in-1 on indoor air pollution and climate change, we began evaluating baseline indoor carbon monoxide concentrations using passive dosimeters. We found considerable variation between summer and winter and between nomadic and agricultural households, with nomadic winter homes having the highest average carbon monoxide concentrations.
In addition, we ran four workshops on sustainable energy in Western China: two at universities, one for a nomadic primary school, and one for non-governmental organization (NGO) workers representing 19 grassroots NGOs across Western China. We also have run three design and engineering workshops focused on inspiring villagers and young NGO workers to gain confidence in innovating physical artifacts.
Conclusions:
The high initial power output of the SolSource concentrator and the marked increase in output efficiencies of detachable modules during laboratory and field tests in Phase I indicates that we have made considerable progress towards our Phase I goals.
Although we still face power reductions due to convective losses at the concentrator focus, we are confident that this can be remedied by pairing the concentrator with blackened and insulated pots.
Finally, we experienced a number of hard-drive failures as a result of conducting tests at high elevation. We recommend and read from other sources that research conducted above 4,000 m should employ solid-state hard-drives.
Proposed Phase 2 Objectives and Strategies:
During Phase I we focused on working with rural communities in the Himalayas to iteratively design a low-cost, portable solar energy platform for cooking, heating, and electricity generation that both achieves high mechanical performance and satisfies key human factors.
During Phase II, we propose to finalize the design for production and conduct a long-term, large-scale field-test to assess the actual impacts of this intervention on health, the environment, local educational and economic opportunity, and gender equality in rural nomadic and agricultural communities in Qinghai and Gansu Provinces, China. We will work with local craftspeople to manufacture 300 models of the SolSource 3-in-1 and with local NGO partners to distribute them to 37 communities.
We will work with local students to train villagers to use the SolSource 3-in-1. Following training, the local students will conduct informal interviews to assess peoples’ initial reactions toward the device. Local students also will work with us to conduct three sets of surveys and interviews at approximately 3-months of use, 9-months of use, and 12-months of use to receive users’ feedback and acquire data on potential confounders of the adoption process or of carbon monoxide or black carbon exposures.
To evaluate changes in household emissions with adoption of the device, carbon monoxide levels in participating households will be measured over two consecutive 48-hour periods in the winter of 2011 and late spring of 2011 prior to implementation as well as in the late summer of 2011 and winter 2012 following implementation. Black carbon emissions also will be measured in these households in order to assess climate change impact.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 8 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
energy distribution, alternative energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, solar heating, energy database, holistic design, environmental health, pollution prevention, international technology,, RFA, Air, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, AtmosphereRelevant Websites:
The website of the organization we started: http://www.oneearthdesigns.org
WorldChanging features the SolSource Project: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009911.html
Our summer blog about the project: http://globalservice.change.org/blog?guest_blogger_id=261
We are Semi-Finalists in the development track of the MIT 100K Business Plan Competition: http://www.mit100k.org/home/bpc-semi-finalists-and-wild-card-teams-announced/
P3 Phase II:
Solsource 3-In-1: Providing Clean Energy to the Poorest 2.5 Billion at a Price They Can Afford | 2011 Progress Report | Final ReportThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.