This week the Brixton Energy interns returned to the Remakery on Lilford Road to hook up the panels they built back in May.
This Thursday 6th July the interns were joined by the Remakery team and guest speaker Ian Westmoreland, an off-grid specialist from Demand Energy Equality, to find out how an independent renewable charging station could be built for the community space using the panels they put together.
The group spoke together about the necessities of an off-grid system and the importance of matching the battery size to the expected daylight hours and output needed. A demonstration was given to show how different light bulbs draw different amounts of power and resultantly discharge the battery over different periods of time.
It was decided that an optimum load for the 3 connected panels would be 4 mobile phones, drawing about 7W each.
When the 12V panels are connected together in parallel we can generate about 27Wh per day even in winter! This would suffice to charge 3 phones at the darkest time of the year!
The interns then went about coming up with a design for the charging system to be created using recycled materials sourced at the Remakery.
The system is now going through an iteration of design cycles which will result in producing a completely green DIY solar station. There will be local energy designed, built and generated in Brixton.
The interns are now coming to the end of the internship, and have been involved in many aspects of renewable energy, from learning the theory, making their own panels, being on the roofs to see existing installs, even drawing up systems for a roof of their choice and now constructing an operational off-grid solar system!
To find out more about the work the Remakery do and whether you can bring your own ideas to reality visit remakery.org/
