Hydro Battery Charging Station

Experience from EnDev projects:

Description of the battery charging system in Mozambique:

AMES-Mozambique includes battery charging activities as part of the micro/pico hydro project component. The aim is to offer a solution to remote houses which are too far from a micro or pico hydro site to benefit from a local grid. These houses then have access to energy by acquiring a battery kit and a basic electrical installation in their houses.

Until now, the strategy is still under development. About 10 kits have been installed in a community that already has a hydro site and in the neighbouring community. The kit includes a high capacity deep cycle battery (75 Ah), a DC to AC power inverter (max power output of 300W), 3 low consumption bulbs (11 to 14 W each), one socket and material to install the bulbs, switches and plugs in the house. Local electricians are trained to carry out the installations and maintenance.

The philosophy of the project is to start with local practices and improve on them. Indeed, some villagers already have experiences using a battery and an inverter for domestic devices like TV, video players and lighting to a limited extent. It has been observed that they use second hand car batteries, poor quality inverters and incandescent bulbs. For charging the batteries, they use under sized solar panels, or have to go to the nearest town, where there is no proper control on the quality of the charge. The first stage of the project has been to improve on the quality of the battery, the inverter and to introduce low consumption bulbs. In addition, battery chargers have been installed in the local grid fed by hydropower.

The project continues to improve by finding the optimal performances of the battery kits (size vs. capacity, charge/discharge controller...) and improving the quality of the material used.