Mobile phone networks have spread throughout the world like wildfire. Three quarters of the world's population now has access to a mobile phone. Coverage stretches across the globe, to rural parts of emerging economies in Asia, Africa and South America. In these places, mobile phones have a particularly positive impact on quality of life. Research by the United Nations identifies mobile phones as the single biggest contributor to economic growth in rural off-grid areas. They spur broad economic growth, improvements to medical and educational knowledge and better access to resources.
But electrical grid infrastructure has not kept pace with the introduction of mobile communications. Governments of developing economies have massive problems providing reliable power networks. For example, in Uganda, around 80% of the population has access to a mobile phone, but only 5% has access to reliable power. The coverage and service levels of mobile phones suffer as a result - network signal base stations power down and customers can’t charge their phones. This is becoming more problematic as usage of mobile telephony spreads and reliance on them grows.
The answer is being developed by companies from around the world, who see an opportunity to both improve the quality of life in these impoverished places, and create a lucrative market in the process.
Buffalo Grid was founded in 2010 and is developing a solar-powered mobile phone charger for off-grid communities. The Hub is a self-contained portable unit containing a lead acid battery, which is used because of the high amount of charge cycling, ports for mobile phones and all the necessary power control and mobile communications electronics.
Up to 20 phones can be charged at a time on the solar-powered Hub
The Hub was originally designed to be powered by a different type of cycling, a bike, but this method was abandoned because it took almost five hours to recharge the unit. “Cycling took a lot of effort and wasn't very efficient,” says Becerra.
Initial field tests and research in Kenya showed people off-grid would travel miles to charge their phones, sometimes to the mobile signal base stations themselves. Even then, availability of power in these rural places was sporadic. Villagers therefore valued convenience and reliability in the unit most highly. Solar offered the best solution. “Fitting the small solar panel is straightforward, but we are not limited to any one power source,” says Becerra. “The device can be charged from the mains at times when there is power, say during the night, and recharge phones when the power is down or cannot be accessed.”
Buffalo Grid's Hub uses a technology called maximum power point tracking. This analyses the solar panel's environment, including temperature, light and resistance of the circuit connected, and optimises the power output. All of the components, including the PCBs, are designed to be robust. It is fully sealed against dust and dirt and can cope with high temperatures.
However, the cleverest feature is the incorporation of mobile communications technology for both usage monitoring and payment. Customers send a 10p text as payment for a single mobile phone charge. The Hubs are loaned out to local entrepreneurs, who are responsible for the upkeep and oversee the charging. The units are engineered to be tamper-proof and a notification is sent if they are opened.
Other companies are developing similar devices to Buffalo Grid's, admits Becerra, but the loaning out of the devices overcomes a major barrier to their adoption, the initial cost of purchase. He says: “These are low income, price sensitive markets. The only things that scale up quickly are things that generate money. We are following a business model similar to the mobile phones themselves. They don't need ownership, they need access.”
The Hub is still in development and Buffalo Grid plans to start production at the end of this year, with a run of 5,000 units for a project involving the Indian government. The potential market is massive. There are approximately 300 million off-grid mobile users in the country with access to only 2 hours of power a day.
Furthermore, Becerra says that eventually the data from the units will be used to scale up different projects and aid the creation of power networks: “We will see a DC revolution in these regions. The grid in many places will be decentralised. We can scale up the system to charge other things that people need and want. One of the first things people in these places always ask for is TV.”
The Hub's solar panel is easy to fit
Another company working to bring power to rural India is Intelligent Energy. The fuel cell development firm shares the vision of a massive potential market. However Intelligent Energy is aiming for another part of the mobile telephony chain, the signal towers.
There are 400,000 mobile phone towers in India. Around 70% have eight hours of power interruptions, every day. When the power goes out, diesel generators kick in to power the towers. Diesel generators for telecoms towers have become the top consumer of diesel in India – some 2.5 billion litres of diesel are used annually for this purpose. This has an undesirable environmental impact because of emissions and a detrimental effect on India's economy. Some 70% of India's oil consumption is imported and around half of that is diesel. The Indian government has a strong interest in moving away from imported diesel in order to improve its domestic economy.
Dr Lee Juby, deputy managing director of distributed power and generation for Intelligent Energy, says a further advantage is cost. “We believe our fuel cells will provide a significant saving over their lifetime,” he says.
The company is developing a range of fuel cell generators for the market between 1 and 20kW. The design is modularised, each fuel cell module generating 1kW of power. The fuel cells themselves are Intelligent Energy's air-cooled proton exchange membrance (PEM) design, developed in partnership with Suzuki. The fuel cell design, which is in its fourth iteration, is also used in automotive applications.
The first generators will have six modules. It will feature remote monitoring and has been developed to be easy to maintain – the modules are plug and play and hot swappable. The firm is aiming to go into production by the end of September. Juby says: “The field trials are completed. They performed well, but gave us some lessons to learn and feed into the engineering for the final product. The “engine” part is well-proven. We’ve had to develop the rest, the whole generator package. We're now in the process of selecting contract manufacturers to make in the region of 70,000 generators in the medium term.”
Similarly to Buffalo Grid, Intelligent Energy is being creative with its business model in order to introduce its technology. The company has set up an Indian subsidiary, Essential Energy, which supplies “power”, including diesel generators, fuel and servicing, to mobile phone companies. The company, which started acquiring customers last year, already covers 10,000 towers under power management contracts and aims to grow to around 125,000 in the medium term.
The plan is to migrate towers with diesel generators to fuel cell generators and reap the benefits. Juby says around 70% of towers are suitable for fuel cell generators. For some batteries or diesel are more suitable solutions because of the periods of downtime or location. However, distribution of fuel is a challenge. Fuel cells run off hydrogen, and the company is working with other organisations, including the Indian Oil Association, to set up distribution networks. Planning of logistics is key, with clusters of towers making the hydrogen model a more practical solution.
Juby sees the business advancing in two ways. The mobile phone market is still growing exponentially in India, with some predicting a million towers built by 2017. There are also opportunities in other developing economies. Africa, he says, looks likely to where the next market will be. Then, similarly to Becerra of Buffalo Grid, he sees scope to power alternative devices and infrastructure. “For example, bank ATMs run off the same power as the towers,” he says.
Diversification is also taking place at the point of use. Intelligent Energy is working with Hydro Industries, a company that produces equipment for the purification of water using a technique called electro-coagulation. This uses electricity to treat water, removing the need for bulk liquid chemicals or large volumes of biomass. The process also has no moving parts, so system maintenance is straightforward and supervisory control can be carried out remotely. The technology is particularly compatible with fuel cell technology, and the company is considering installing equipment with its fuel cells.
The scale of the commercial opportunities are exciting, but more exciting still is the improving of lives in emerging economies using innovative technology. Engineers all over the world have got the call, and are beginning to answer it.