Solaris Offgrid is one of the proud winners of round 2 of the Global LEAP Solar E-Waste Challenge supported by USAID, a program to support innovations in off-grid solar e-waste management.
- Part of Solaris Offgrid team, holding the prize at the headquarter in Valencia, Spain -
When the battery performance does not meet the client's need anymore, they usually discard the entire SHS. As a result, electronics that are still in good condition are often thrown away and the battery is not recycled because it is hard to extract.
To address the issue of discarding functional solar home systems due to internal battery failure, Solaris Offgrid is investigating designs allowing the connection of easily replaceable and recycled tamper proof external batteries. This Solaris Offgrid project, supported by the Global LEAP Solar E-Waste Challenge, focuses on two innovative designs that could help product manufacturers improve their offering over time: a smart multi-battery pack manager and a recyclable battery pack design with cell by cell management.
"We are currently pushing for innovations that could benefit the entire off-grid solar Industry, product manufacturers above all. Through our initial investigations, we identified enhanced energy storage modules (equipped with best in class electronics and tampering protections) that could enable significant cost and e-waste reduction in the sector." Ulysses De Waegemaeker, Industrial Designer & Engineer at Solaris Offgrid.
An initial field-test phase has started in Tanzania and further implementations are expected across Sub-Saharan Africa to include in this investigation the long-term commercial benefits for both SHS manufacturers and distributors adopting such technology.
"During the initial field test we analyzed the performance of the technology in a real case scenario, this allowed us to identify different key factors to be considered during the next stages of the development." Daniel Nedosseikine, Electronic Engineer at Solaris Offgrid.
For more information about the Solar E-Waste Challenge and the awardees: https://globalleapawards.org/e-waste
About Solaris Offgrid :
Solaris Offgrid supports distributors of essential services to build strong customer traction and greater relations with investors through flexible and inclusive Paygo solutions, designed for last-mile operations. Adopting a bottom up approach in the design of its solutions and creating synergies with a strong network of partners to solve last-mile challenges, the company has already deployed Paygo solutions in more than 30 countries through PaygOps, Solaris Offgrid in-house software solution built “In the Field, for the Field” and its product development services. Leading reference in the off-grid solar market, PaygOps, is engineered to deliver modular and interoperable solutions to address off-grid energy access challenges and distribution complexity. For more information on PaygOps, please contact enquiries@paygops.com.
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