Moving towards energy inclusion

According to the World Bank, 800 million people still do not have access to energy. And since energy is the main pillar for the development of the economy, it is essential to provide solutions that contribute to reducing the socio-economic gap between countries.

In order to solve the energy access problem, countries with a higher share of energy exclusion are carrying out numerous projects, mainly based on the expansion of the national electricity grid or through the installation of hybrid microgrids. However, both solutions are not viable for the most remote and difficult to access areas. That is why the current dynamics seeks to solve these cases individually, through individual autonomous solar systems.

In this context, and with the aim of undertaking a change, Solartia and IED have thoroughly analyzed the current problems of individual systems for non-interconnected areas.

Looking for a minimum power that guarantees basic subsistence consumption, current systems are based on solar kits of individual parts that are integrated into the user’s home on the same day of installation. Under this principle, high skilled labor and intensive maintenance over time are the main characteristics of such architecture. If we additionally see how few barriers there are to prevent theft or dismantling of the system, we can understand the low scalability of this solution in the long term.

After a period of understanding this problem, we understood that once again technology could help to create a scalable and durable product over time. From that point on, temperature control and its relationship with power output, as well as battery health status, started to be the pillars of the internal project.

Both teams understood from the beginning that energy inclusion has to go beyond guaranteeing energy access. It has to seek not only the economic development of the regions, but also to connect these populations with the rest of the country’s population. Understanding the context of non-interconnected areas, we had to analyze the possibility of connecting telecommunications. That is why in parallel we started an investigation on how to extract/send data from such remote locations.

From the beginning we had a clear position, and that is that if the world’s leading countries rely on technology to continue to evolve their economy and lifestyle, it must once again be the same principle that we apply in every aspect of our research. Without technology, there is no sustainable progress, and without electronics to enable that technology, there is no sustainable progress. Therefore, the road to electrical inclusion in these non-interconnected areas passes irremediably through them.