Abstract There are rural areas in Ghana which are off-grid but where there is a need for street lighting. Street lighting facilities in such areas typically store electrical power in lead-acid batteries. The goal of this thesis is to construct a facility where fuel cells and hydrogen accumulation replace lead-acid batteries. The construction consists of a solar cell which transmits DC power to an electrolyzer which in turn produces hydrogen and oxygen. The gases accumulate in the container until nightfall when it starts providing DC power to street lighting via a fuel cell. The street lights can operate between 5 - 10 hours per day, depending on the power of the lamp. Besides providing street lighting the device may also be used for other purposes such as indoor lighting, charging of mobile phones etc. This means that, in addition to the basic purpose of providing electrical power to the street lights, other co-benefits of social significance can be achieved. The device is designed not to create any harmful emissions during operation, thus being environmentally sustainable. Further research on the device may in a second step entail: Construction of a prototype on a smaller scale, where calculations and function are tested. If it turns out well, a third step can begin: To build a full scale plant to be tested on site in Ghana.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-28649 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Mårtensson, Pär |
| Publisher | Karlstads universitet, Institutionen för ingenjörs- och kemivetenskaper |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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