Renewable Energy Care, and The Need to own One Especially if you Live in Nigeria
greenrun (64) in steemstem • 3 months ago
Femi hardly comes online, even as the year is coming to an end he is offline. The reason is not farfetched; he does not have the electric power to charge his phone. He wanted to use the generator, but a litter of fuel is almost a $1. Femi is not alone; I can authoritatively say many reading this post from Nigeria are doing so with privately generated power. That is the life of most people living in a country with very low productivity in public power supply.
In Nigeria, the available electric generated capacity is less than 6,000 mega watts. For there to be sufficient power supply to meet the national electricity demand, there is the need to generate up to 160,000 mega watts.
Bassey, on the other hand, is fortunate enough to be a user of solar energy but of late he has been getting a pretty poor performance. In fact, he gets a better performance when it was raining than now in the dry season.
Bassey did not know the problem of his poor performing solar energy lies on the dust covering the panels.
Living in a country with lots of dust and birds poses a challenge to a solar energy user during the time the rains are gone. These dust on panels reduce its efficiency by blocking the sunlight from getting to the solar cells. That is particularly true of panels installed near a busy road or dusty environment.
You can always do this by visually inspecting the solar panel or by observing the harvest displayed on the solar charge controller. If smaller than usual on a particularly bright day, it is now advisable to take a look at the solar panel's surface.
Cleaning should be easy if solar panels are ground mounted; it entails washing the surface of the panels with water.
But it becomes more of a challenge if the solar panels are placed on the roof. It is recommended you get a professional solar installer to do the cleaning. You do not want to risk breaking a limb doing it yourself, do you?
I often hear of the high cost of using renewable energy like solar power, but when you factor in the cost of running a diesel-electric generator plus the attendant fire risk, pollution of the environment which may even prove fatal due to death from carbon dioxide poisoning, I think it is worth every penny spent.
I am passionate about renewable energy as a means to stop the power scarcity in most African countries, that is why I thought it fitting that my last post of 2017 should be about it.
Thank you all as you read and upvote