2024-09-12

OK, "Going Big" is going to take a bit longer than we hoped ...

Dear Friends, Family and Compatriots:

  I just got back from my latest trip to Malawi about a week ago. I was there for more than three months.  That was just a little too long. From now on, I think I am going to take much shorter trips to Malawi (i.e. 3 to 4 weeks), and let my Malawian colleagues manage things a little more on their own. It is better if the work in Malawi is run by Malawians rather than being micro-managed by some geek hippy from Berkeley anyways ...

Slowing Down the Rate of "Going Big"

  In other news, the larger-scale funding that our solar cooking research partners had hoped to develop has fallen through.

  That is actually OK, because it is more pleasant and a lot less stressful to grow at a 50% to 100% per year rate rather than 500% to 1000% per year. So in some sense I am actually a quite a bit relieved that attaining the multi-million-dollar level of funding has been delayed for a little while!

  We will of course stay open to any multi-million dollar grants that might come our way and allow us to get 10 times bigger. But in the meantime, we will keep improving our efficiency and productivity. So that we can double our impact each year with the $100k to $150k in annual donations and grants that we are currently getting from our long-time supporters: i.e. supporters like you!

  With our current support levels, we are making life substantially better for about 10,000 Malawians per year and producing upwards of half a million per year in benefits to rural villagers. So if we can keep growing that impact, that is still a very substantial contribution to making the world a better place.

  And we are expanding our activities and accomplishments as described below:

Our May to September Accomplishments

  Over the last four months, we have substantially ramped up our activities.

  During this time, we have had more than 20 people engaged with us in different capacities including: Laurence, Gilbert, Racheal, Christina, James. Eggrey, Gift, Victoria, Judit, John, Laura, Emily, Chifuniro, Tom, Chitani, Mercy, Mada, Hope, Montfort, Moses, and yours truly.  

  John, Laura and Emily are  volunteers from the US, where John and Laura are retired like me, and Emily is an undergraduate intern from Stanford.  Emily has written two blog posts about her experience with us. They are quite contemplative and almost poetic:

https://www.omprakash.org/blog/there-is-no-monolith

https://www.omprakash.org/blog/life-is-short--and-sweet-if-you-re-lucky

  With the fairly large complement of volunteers/employees/contractors that we had this summer, we have made the following substantial accomplishments in the past few months:

(A) We assembled >80 "Forever Batteries"

(B) We ramped up our pump repair activities 

(C) We distributed new and improved pumping systems

(D) We refined and upgraded our off-grid solar cooking system; and

(E) We established a non-profit Malawi NGO

  I now describe each of these activities/accomplishments in turn

Assembling >80 Forever Batteries

  Currently in rural Malawi, when people want solar electricity, they typically buy a solar panel and a lead-acid battery. The batteries are designed to last 500 cycles (i.e. a little over a year of daily cycling), but because they often get over-charged and over-discharged, many lead-acid batteries last only a few months. There is no battery recycling in rural Malawi, so the dead batteries typically get discarded out in the open, or sit around as a door-stop in people's house. 

  We realized a few years ago, that it is possible to make a battery that last 10 to 20 years just like a solar panel and that this would not only make solar electricity cheaper over the long term because you are not buying a new battery every year, but it would also help avoid the toxic pollution cause by improper disposal of lead-acid batteries. 

  Over the past six months, Skyler (our electrical engineering volunteer from Stanford) has been refining the latest, greatest version of our "forever battery" which uses lithium titanate technology and is designed to last 10 to 20 years ... just like solar panels. What is really fantastic is that he has not only upgraded the design but has improved and documented the assembly process, leading to a much more reliable assembly and production quality control. 

  So in July and August, we assembled more than 80 forever batteries.  We produced two types, one higher power, 20V battery to be used for cooking and a smaller 12V one that can be used to typical DC loads such as DC lights, phone charging or a small DC/AC inverter that can power other electronics. 

  There was a bit of a learning curve in production, so about 10 to 15 electronic boards or batteries failed.  But in our next production run, we expect to have a lower failure/error rate. 

  IMHO, the batteries are just GREAT!  Not only are they robust and powerful, but they have a data logging capability so that we can record all of the operating data in detail. We have distributed about half of the batteries to various customers households or around our workshop, and will be using the remaining batteries for demonstrations and for some additional initial test customers.

  The batteries are working so well, that we are planning on making more than 500 more in the December to March time frame and have ordered the battery cells which hopefully will arrive in the next few months. 

  These forever batteries really have the potential of revolutionizing electricity access in rural Africa.  I am so so so excited by these batteries!

Ramping up pump repairs and improvements

  Now that we have had more experience with the pumping systems, we are finding out that while the solar panels last a long time, and the irrigation pipe lasts a long time, the pump which is doing all of the work and has the moving parts, lasts about a year on average, before it typically needs a repair. 

  A key to creating this learning is the impact evaluation work that John has been organizing. He organized the contracting of two data collectors to visit a random sample of our pump customers this summer to interview them regarding how the pumping systems have impacted their life and what has been working well and not-so-well.  From this we learn more about the repair and replacement needs of the pump. 

  The pumps are actually pretty cheap and easy to repair and replace. Some customers repair the pump on their own. For us, replacing a pump for a customer costs $30 to $50, and repairing a pump cost about $10.  Typically when a pump needs a repair, the pump needs either the motor brushes or the main bearings replaced. Both parts cost about a dollar or two at most. 

  So while last year we repaired or replaced a few dozen pumps out of nearly 1000 distributed  This year, we are replacing or repairing a few hundred pumps while increasing our customer base to about 1500 total customers. And we are working on bringing the repair and replacement services closer to the customers so that when and if a pump breaks, it can be fixed more rapidly. 

Distributing new and improved solar pumping systems

  In addition, to improving repair and replacement support, we increased the power and quality of the pumping systems that we distribute. Last year, customers would power one 180W pump with two 100-watt solar panels. Now we are distributing a 370W solar panel which can either power the 180W pump (which now works well in partly cloudy days) or people can buy a 350W pump and pump twice as much water as with the 180W pump.  In addition we have increased the hose length in the system from 50 meters to 100 meters.  So now customers can reach an area that is 4 times bigger from a single point water source. 

  Hopefully John and his contractors will be able to collect a little bit of data on the new and improved systems to see to what extent they are producing bigger customer benefits as expected. 

Refining and upgrading our off-grid solar cooking system

  As described in the April friends and family letter, we are now able to provide an affordable off-grid solar electric cooking system that has about 700 watts of solar panels. A couple of refinements and issues that need to be resolved before such systems can be distributed at scale include:(A) Is 700W necessary, or can the cooker system have fewer solar panels and be a bit cheaper, (B) How does the forever battery get incorporated into the system? and (C) How much subsidy is needed to make the system affordable to rural customers. 

  To answer question (A), we cooked hundreds of dishes on systems with more and fewer solar panels and pretty clearly verified that 600 to 700 watts of solar panels are needed to cook the 3 to 5 dishes per day that people will want to cook on sunny days. 

  To answer question (B), we distributed two competing systems to customers: (#1) A system with 700W of solar panels and no battery, and (#2) a system with a 350W solar panel and a 20V forever battery.  We are still analyzing some of the data that we collected, but it seems pretty clear that people can cook more with the 700W of solar panels and no battery than the system with a 350W panel and a battery.  Since the battery is more expensive than a 350W panel, then it is best to first sell a system with two 350W solar panels to start cooking and that add the battery later. 

  To answer question (C), we simply tried selling the cooker systems at different prices.  We found that if we sell the 700W system at $50, the demand is unlimited, while if we sell it at about $200, the demand is small, and so it seems that selling it for a little over $100 is the sweet spot.  This means that a little over $100 is the price at which we are now selling the 700W cooking systems.

  I also would like to note, that we can now get a 655W solar panel at the factory door in China for only $53.  By the time it is transported to Malawi, it costs about $75. With the voltage conversion electronics and the cooker added, the total cost of the cooking system materials is about $150.  So if we can keep the distribution cost down to about $50, the $100 price for the cooking system represents about a 50% subsidy. 

  We are getting close to being able to provide affordable off-grid solar electric cooking without too much subsidy. 

Establishing a non-profit Malawi NGO 

  Really to institutionalize the work in Malawi so that it does not depend so much on me as an individual, we need to establish a non-profit or NGO, run by other people who can operate, promote and fundraise for the solar technologies and systems that we have developed. 

  Over the last year, a good friend and fellow volunteer, John W, has lead the effort to establish such a Malawi NGO.  Over the last several months, he and a batch of colleagues have made good progress in establishing a Malawi NGO that can take over these projects and hopefully eventually make them into a big program.  The NGO is called "Affordable Solar for Villagers" or in Chichewa "Solar Ku Midzi"

  Right now, the Malawi operations are run as a limited liability company, lead by my Malawi partner, Laurence K.  Hopefully as the NGO gets established, many of the charitable activities can move over the NGO, eventually getting foundation or development funding, and Laurence can run a regular for-profit solar business that serves customers who don't need their solar products to be subsidized.  This way the solar technology that we have developed over the year can serve everyone: both low-income and middle-income communities with each organization serving the appropriate community.

  We will see how this develops.  But one thing we do know is that we have to try setting up an NGO, simply because the social benefits of the solar products that we distribute are so large, and theoretically an NGO should be able to get grants to expand these social benefits and poverty-reduction impacts. 

That's it for now ...

  Well that is it for now.  My next trip to Malawi will probably be in January.  It will be a short one.  I will probably send the next update around November/December to give an update on progress before the end of the year, and then I will likely send a trip report around February after my next visit to Malawi.  

  Things are going well.  Our technical solutions and systems are maturing, and so is the organization in Malawi.  We may not be "Going Big" this year, but with a little persistence, we should be able to figure out how to scale up to serve many more thousands of households sometime within the next few years. Fingers crossed!!

  And as always, THANK YOU for your continuing support. What I try to do is make sure that for every $1 that you donate, we produce at least $10 of benefit (on average) for low-income rural Malawians. And I am always trying to get this number higher all of the time. 

  Feel free to keep supporting us at:

https://www.omprakash.org/global/solar4africa/donate

In love and struggle, 

Robert VB