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Solar Panels for One Laptop Per Village

Solar panels can be expensive, although the technology is presently at a turning point whereby entire countries are subsidizing them to encourage homes to put them on their roofs. The state subsidises the panels and the homes sell the extra electricity to the state while the homeowners are at work, when they are not using electricity. During these “peak hours”, when industry uses much of a nation’s electricity, prices are usually higher. In the evening, when the homeowners return from work, they buy back electricity from the state, but at the lower, residential price. So everyone wins. Imagine every rooftop in a country with solar panels!

 

It is therefore good to encourage and lobby your government to go this wise route. Until this is accomplished though, there are many suppliers of panels in the world. If you find any good and inexpensive suppliers in Africa, please inform me so that I can pass on the good news to others.

 

In the meantime, I’ve been hearing that it is possible to make one’s own solar panels. I researched this a bit and determined that it is often cheapest to order the actual panel parts and construct the rest. Even cheaper than that is to order the individual panels as used or broken from ebay. Those can stack one on top of another and ship cheaply in a small package. The rest you can construct yourself.

 

Construct Your Own Solar Panels

 

For this purpose I managed to find a few webpages explaining in detail how to accomplish this. If you find any more useful pages please inform me so that I can update these pages.

Hooking Up the Solar Panels

 

I wrote this page for my electrical hookup in my caravan, but it should apply anywhere.
- here is one example by a Kenyan named Patrick.

 

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