Barakah Heritage Farm USA

Tag: systems

  • How to Permaculture Refugee Camps

    How to Permaculture Refugee Camps

     

    How to Permaculture Refugee Camps

    Malcolm Johnstone
    Thursday, 9th March 2017

    How permaculture principles and design can be applied to refugee camps to make them more sustainable and liveable.

    Temporary IDP camps (internally displaced camps) built for those in Iraq, as well as many other conflict situations, are often more permanent than initially planned.

    Camps built in a few weeks for an influx of people are, years later, small towns with shops, schools and bustling social activity. These towns however, are not sustainable due to the lack of an industrial or agricultural base. Simply, they don’t create any internal value to trade with outside. Instead they rely on external inputs – government salaries for a lucky few – but more often, food vouchers, goods and cash from humanitarian organizations.

    Aspects of permaculture can improve the sustainability of these camps and have positive effects on food security, nutrition, livelihoods and self-esteem.

    Given that the camps are usually planned quickly in accordance with long-established planning guidelines, the usual starting point for implementing ideas from permaculture is in an existing camp, rather than in the spatial planning phase. (Though, permaculture has a lot to say about spatial design). That said, there are many permaculture aspects that can be implemented at the household plot level and in the water reticulation system that have excellent impacts.

    WASH, or Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, in the humanitarian sector has the most promise from a permaculture perspective. Innovations in this area have the potential to assist in the production of food, help protect shelters through establishing wind-breaks, beautify a neighbourhood, employ people and increase the skills, social interaction and self-esteem of camp residents. Here is how to get there:

    Food

    Thinking in zones is a design technique in permaculture that helps reduce the effort required to make a system work. The zones are determined by the place where most of the activity happens – usually the home – and the availability of water – which could be from the roof of the house, or another location.

    The inner zone is a great place to grow herbs and vegetables for use in the kitchen. These kitchen gardens require a relatively high amount of water, so should be placed near to both the kitchen and a water source. In camp settings there is often enough space around a shelter or tent for a small and productive kitchen garden.

    Slightly further away, in zone 2, fruit trees might be planted, as they require less water. Raising chickens might be considered here to keep the weeds down, fertilize the soil and provide eggs and meat.

    Taking advantage of paths that are travelled often is a useful innovation of permaculture systems. If people are already moving in a direction, why not plant something along the way that they can tend or pick? In a camp situation if water must be carried some of it could be used to water plants on route. If the chickens are on a convenient path then kitchen scraps can easily be fed to them.

    Protecting shelters

    The borders of the camp, or along the sides of streets are good places to run drains, and to grow trees as windbreaks. Exposure to the wind and sun reduces the life of an emergency tent and protection from these elements makes a camp a more pleasant place to live. Fast growing trees can be planted at the outset of camp construction.

    Employment

    Permaculture relies a lot on manual labour so is suited to camps where labour is one of few assets people have. Setting up systems of water reticulation and planting trees can often be supported financially by humanitarian organizations. The systems can then be maintained by camp residents.

    Skills, Social interaction and Self-esteem

    Boredom in IDP and refugee camps is a real issue for residents. Learning skills and undertaking activities can be a way to achieve various aims at personal and community levels. The process of planning, digging, planting and tending can be therapeutic, can deliver new knowledge and can integrate a community together.

    Beauty

    Stark rows of tents, often in remote locations, provide uninspiring views for camp residents every day. Permaculture, with its focus on gardening, can assist with beautifying an environment with plants. Living fencing can replace fences, and if planted in a zigzag can provide plenty of ecological niches to support other types of plants and animals.

    It’s never too early to start thinking from a permaculture perspective. Humanitarian organizations in Iraq should start now!

    Useful links

    How permaculture can respond to refugee camps

    Building resilience after earthquakes

    Creating community through language

    PM-ad-for-online-articles_0.jpg

    https://www.permaculture.co.uk/readers-solutions/how-permaculture-refugee-camps

    On – 09 Mar, 2017 By

  • The roadmap of a renewable future

    The roadmap of a renewable future

    Energy systems have been transformed by regulation and the progress of technology. Global awareness of climate change will only accelerate this trend, increasing the rate of growth of alternatives to fossil fuels the world over.

    Renewables are playing an expanding role in the global energy transition and will continue to reshape electricity markets. With low marginal cost and priority feed-in to grid systems, renewables can squeeze conventional generators out of the market and drive severe short-term price swings.

    The effect remains marginal but, as soon as the share of renewable energy in the power mix reaches critical mass, it can bring serious disruption. This is already the case in some European countries, such as Germany and the UK, and will impact coal generation in the US from 2020 and gas generation in Europe beyond 2025.

    Global supply growth for renewables is the fastest in the energy mix, reaching an average of 7% per year between 2015 and 2035 for wind and 11% for solar. These positive figures cannot hide the fact that their rapid increase is from a relatively low base, but renewables have often surprised to the upside in recent years – a trend which could continue.

    Global growth differs by location due to different climate conditions and the ability of technologies to suit the needs of local populations. In geographically-advantaged countries, the share of renewables in the power mix grows exponentially. India, for example, has ambitious solar targets and we expect an increase from 3% of total power generating capacity in 2015 to more than 35% in 2035.

    Meanwhile, wind power remains the prerogative of developed and mature markets (with the exception of China). As fossil fuels and nuclear use slowly decline in Western Europe, we expect wind to become the largest source of electricity by 2030 at around 21%.

    Asia will also see renewables develop steadily, driven by a will to cut CO2 emissions in the mature markets of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, or as a result of a steep increase in power demand in the case of South East Asia.

    In China, despite slower power demand growth, solar and wind will develop at a fast pace, reaching 7% and 18% of total electricity output respectively. We also forecast nuclear output to expand here more than tenfold between 2015 and 2035 – a stark contrast to many other countries, where nuclear remains unpopular.

    With technology continually improving, renewables are no longer simply regarded as the expensive green option but are now considered serious competition. It’s clear that renewable energy is in a strong position to force the market to reshape.

     

    As well as being part of our subscription service, the full report is also available to purchase

    You may also like
    2035: What will the global energy landscape look like?
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    https://www.woodmac.com/analysis/renewable-roadmap-2035

    On – 12 Apr, 2017 By Wood Mackenzie

  • Using Animals on the Homestead

    Using Animals on the Homestead

    How many of you are looking for ways to save time on your homestead? I’m raising my hand. Some days it seems like there are never enough hours. Am I right?

    One way that we try to save precious time around our homestead is by striving for a simpler life. But sometimes homesteading doesn’t really feel simple.

    There’s always something that needs to be done. We get up early, take care of our family and animals. There seems to be never ending projects, repairs, or routine maintenance.

    A sometimes overlooked way to save time is by using your animals as helpers by doing what they were born to do. And by doing this, not only does it help us, but it also keeps them happy and healthy.

     

    Read the Full Post:
    Using Animals on the Homestead

    http://www.homesteadbloggersnetwork.com/using-animals-on-the-homestead/

    On – By Mary Woita

  • Using Animals on the Homestead

    Using Animals on the Homestead

    How many of you are looking for ways to save time on your homestead? I’m raising my hand. Some days it seems like there are never enough hours. Am I right?

    One way that we try to save precious time around our homestead is by striving for a simpler life. But sometimes homesteading doesn’t really feel simple.

    There’s always something that needs to be done. We get up early, take care of our family and animals. There seems to be never ending projects, repairs, or routine maintenance.

    A sometimes overlooked way to save time is by using your animals as helpers by doing what they were born to do. And by doing this, not only does it help us, but it also keeps them happy and healthy.

     

    Read the Full Post:
    Using Animals on the Homestead

    http://www.homesteadbloggersnetwork.com/using-animals-on-the-homestead/

    On – By Mary Woita

  • How to Plant Efficiently With Permaculture Principles

    How to Plant Efficiently With Permaculture Principles

    The term permaculture is being passed around fairly frequently in agricultural circles these days. To make a complex idea quite simple, when it comes to growing things, permaculture seeks to do it as efficiently and low-impact as possible. Where organic gardening could still be cultivating rows of single crops, permaculture looks for ways of mixing useful plants to create beneficial relationships that craftily replicate nature.

    Think about it this way: When you see a natural forest, left to its own devices, the plant (and animal) life is healthy, abundant and diverse all own its own. There is no need for fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or whatever else because the symbiotic relationships between the flora and fauna, including insects, regulate themselves such that the entire ecosystem maximizes its functionality.

    With permaculture, often referred to as lazy farming, practitioners seek to mimic these natural systems. Rather than tilling up soil, planting in rows and weeding like mad, trees, vegetables, bushes, herbs, vines, tubers and even weeds can all (and have for millennia) grow well without so much human effort to keep them separated and meticulously groomed.

    Good Guilds! What an Idea!

    In fact, all of this grooming is contrary to how it’s supposed to happen, which is why gardening has the reputation of being such a laborious undertaking. It doesn’t have to be. With the right ideas and planning in place, several different species can be grouped in such a way that they not just work in harmony but actually fulfill each other’s needs. These groupings are called guilds.

    The most commonly recognized guild for many is the trio used by Native Americans: corn, squash and beans. But, why did they do this? Well, these plants help each other out, in turn all yielding better crops. Corn provides a pole for the beans to grow on. The beans provide nitrogen to soil (the main ingredient in most fertilizers), with sugar from the corns’ roots to feed the nitrogen bacteria. The squash grows along earth, covering the ground so that weeds are minimized, insect-devouring animals have a place to hide and the soil stays moist, protected from the sun.

    This trio, though, is quite a simple sample of the relationship complexities guilds can actually maintain. In fact, guilds can be composed of a dozen or more different perennial plants (those that don’t require annual cultivation), including multiple trees, an entire harvestable crop of vegetable bushes, greens, flowers, herbs, and roots. They can, in essence, be the beginning of an entire self-sustaining eco-system.

    How to Make a Your Own Mega-Productive Permaculture Guild

    Now, observing the fact that nature produces its own recurring plant groupings over time, with the slow unfolding of particular plants and animals gathering into wonderful little extended families, permaculturalists try to replicate similar relationships, only they do so with plants that are also useful to humans.

    While coexisting corn, beans and squash is a great concept, full-on guilds have much more going on. Specifically, there are seven layers to think about. Forest guilds are centered around a large tree (overstory), often a fruit or nut tree, surrounded by smaller trees (understory) interspersed with shrubs, such as berries. Below that, plants get green and herbaceous, including culinary herbs and salad greens, and there will need to be something covering the soil (groundcover). Then, there are vines, climbing up things, and tubers growing under things.

    Of course, this not just a random collection of plants but rather a careful puzzle-plotting of pieces that perform well together. Each guild can be composed a different components when growers understand what roles each plants are playing and what is needed in return.

    Here’s a basic fruit tree guild, something that could actually be created in most suburban backyards:

    • At the guild center is an apple tree.
    • Around it, you’ll need nitrogen fixers, which can come in the form of ground cover, such as clover, maybe even some small legume trees, like pigeon pea, spaced around the edges. These fertilize everything, provide ground cover, mulch, and yield more food. Maybe throw a hazelnut tree in there.
    • Inside the mix, incorporate pest-deterring plants, such as chives, basil and mint, and on the edges, use pest-distracting plants like dill and sunflowers.
    • Next, it’s important to have a weed deterrent, which usually equates to a plant with big leaves, like squash or cucumber, or a guilder’s favorite: comfrey, which has deep taproots to pull nutrients up from the depths, medicinal uses, and nutrient dense leaves for mulching and fertilizing.
    • Include vertical and underground elements, like wild yams, which are shade tolerant vines that supply edible tubers.

    Different plants work better in different climates, so find out what’s growing in your area. Once it’s all going, the lazy farmer more or less just gets out of the way, visiting for a harvest here and there, occasionally chop and drop mulching the place to keep the organic matter thick and nurturing. But, in fact, the guild can take care of itself and you.

    Lead Image Source: Renaud Camus/Flickr

    http://www.onegreenplanet.org/lifestyle/how-to-plant-efficiently-with-permaculture-principles/

    On – 15 Oct, 2016 By Jonathon Engels

  • Permaculture Puts Organic Gardening on Autopilot

    Permaculture Puts Organic Gardening on Autopilot

    BY: TIM O’NEAL

    Organic food and farming have seen a huge increase over the past ten years, and for good reason. Farming and gardening techniques that use fewer harmful, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are better for the environment and better for human health. Permaculture methods of growing food reach far beyond these benefits. Growing food organically is just the starting point.

    According to a report from 2014 by Stephen Daniells titled US organic food market to grow 14% from 2013-18, 81% of American families reported buying organic food at least sometimes. For many people, the barriers to buying organic food are accessibility and cost. Growing organic produce at home overcomes both of those issues. Permaculture practices are a great way to achieve the best results.

    What is Permaculture 

    Permaculture (permanent + agriculture) was developed in the late 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. It’s a set of principles and techniques for food production at any scale that focuses on mimicking natural systems, instead of competing against them. It puts humans into the system as engaged participants, departing from the conventional agricultural approach of conquering nature. The principles can be applied to container gardens on apartment balconies, large scale agricultural operations, and anything in between.

    Practitioners of permaculture believe that it is more than a set of gardening techniques. It is the simplest and most direct way we can repair many of the global problems we face today – environmental destruction, poverty and food scarcity, water shortages, among others.

    Co-founder, Bill Mollison, says, ““The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.”

    From Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, there are three core tenets:

    Care for the earth: Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply. This is the first principle, because without a healthy earth, humans cannot flourish.
    Care for the people: Provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence.
    Return of surplus: Reinvesting surpluses back into the system to provide for the first two ethics. This includes returning waste back into the system to recycle into usefulness. The third ethic is sometimes referred to as Fair Share to reflect that each of us should take no more than what we need before we reinvest the surplus.

    As stated in the third tenet, one central element of permaculture is to return waste back into the system as a benefit. The most direct way to do this is to compost garden and food waste onsite to add nutrients and organic material to the soil. If done well, this can eliminate the need for fertilizers.

    There is also a strong emphasis on providing habitat for pollinators, other beneficial insects, and birds. The idea is to mimic a forest setting, or some other mature ecosystem, where pests and diseases are kept in balance by a harmonious relationship among organisms up and down the food chain. With this approach, there’s no need for chemical pest control.

    Permaculture concepts can be applied beyond a single garden or farm to include a neighborhood, village, or an entire city. A permaculture system is designed for resiliency. This means that if one element fails the rest of the parts can fill in to keep the overall system intact. A society designed around permaculture principles is built to withstand destructive forces.

    While it is a relatively new approach to food production, permaculture relies on concepts from traditional approaches to agriculture. There are methods from all over the world that have been highly productive and sustainable over long periods of time. The revolution of industrial agriculture has worked to eliminate many of these techniques. Permaculture incorporates them back into the modern system to ensure resiliency.

    Achieving a productive garden using organic practices is an important goal, for the health of both humans and the environment. Permaculture provides a tested, ethical method for achieving that goal. It also assures us that the benefits of growing healthy food for ourselves isn’t limited to the space of our gardens.

    As Bill Mollison says, “If we do not get our cities, homes, and gardens in order, so that they feed and shelter us, we must lay waste to all other natural systems. Thus, truly responsible conservationists have gardens.”

    For a great introduction to some permaculture ideas, check out this video by Toby Hemenway.

    https://thehomestead.guru/permaculture/

    On – 21 Mar, 2017 By The Plaid Zebra

  • How To Decolonize The Permaculture Movement

    How To Decolonize The Permaculture Movement

    About a year ago, I posted an article in the Huffington Post detailing some of the reasons why I thought permaculture had become a “gringo” movement irrelevant to the majority of small farmers around the world.

    There were a number of reactions, both positive and negative, but I was frustrated that very few people actually offered some sort of solution or proposal for how to “un-gringo” a movement and ideology that we find hope in.

    After a good deal of reflection, I want to focus now on how to rescue the permaculture movement; how to save it from some of its most disturbing and troubling tendencies. I believe that permaculture does have a lot to offer to peasant and agrarian communities around the world, so I humbly offer these ideas and suggestions not as a judgement; but rather in the hopes that permaculture can become relevant and practically applicable to the majority of small farmers around the world.

    Stop Buying Land in Shangri-La Areas Around the World

    We need to understand the effects of our privilege. As a foreigner (most likely white and male, because that is the predominant demographic of the permaculture movement) we are inevitably going to change the dynamics of small, rural communities where we take up residence.

    While there can be positive effects through bringing new knowledge and ideas into a community, there can (and often are) unseen and ignored negative effects. When wealthy foreigners buy up land in rural, agrarian areas, this inevitably leads to gentrification. The spike in land prices forces young people off of the land and causes migration.

    I don´t excuse myself from this reality. As a white, North American male, my family and I bought a farm in the mountains of El Salvador that was the inheritance of a young man who was no longer interested in farming. With the money we paid him, he paid a human trafficker to try and make it to the United States and has failed twice. If he tries to go again, he´ll have to deal with a ridiculous wall, increased border militarization, and a racist president.

    My only excuse is that I fell in love with a Salvadoran woman who invited me to be a part of her reality. If you do end up purchasing land in some hidden, agrarian community, make an effort to truly belong there. If you´re just buying a piece of land to have it as a vacation home and a place to host a couple permaculture workshops during the year, you´re probably causing much more harm than good.

    Also, if you are interested in permaculture and are looking for land to create a vision of your own, why not look at land in rural Kentucky instead of Costa Rica? Not only is land in many rural areas of the U.S. cheaper, but there is also an urgent need to repopulate rural areas and increase the “eyes-to-acre” ratio that is necessary for proper land management and ecological care.

    Don’t Make Permaculture Courses Your Primary Source of Income

    I understand that a number of people in the developed world have the extra income to spend on a $2,000-dollar permaculture course. If they’ve got the money, why shouldn´t they pay?

    The problem is that if you derive the majority of your income from offering permaculture courses, you´re automatically divorcing yourself from the reality of your neighbors who make their living from the land. You can´t claim to offer a viable economic alternative (no matter how ecological it may be) to your under privileged neighbors who see that your income comes from hosting wealthy North Americans.

    What if we were to use that money to re-distribute economic opportunities to our neighbors? We need to be honest and admit that establishing an economically viable permaculture system takes time and money. I´m not saying that we should stop offering courses all together, but rather reconsider how to invest that money into the dreams and visions of neighbor farmers who don’t have the same economic potential as do we.

    After all, isn´t that what the third ethic of permaculture is all about: redistributing surplus so that others can enjoy the long-term abundance that comes from ecological design?

    Stop Appropriating Knowledge

    There is nothing that angers me more than watching permaculture videos on YouTube where some permaculture expert claims to have “developed” or “invented” some revolutionary technique to help preserve soil, store water, or save the environment.

    For example, recently I watched a video of a permaculture farmer who claims to have developed a technique to slow erosion through making banana leaf boomerang barriers on the slope beneath where he planted some fruit trees. The idea is no doubt a good one; but it´s far from a unique development. I personally have seen dozens of small farmers throughout Central America do the exact same thing. Of course, they don’t have access to a camera and the internet to show the world their invention.

    To put it bluntly, this is appropriation of knowledge, and it´s the same thing that mega- pharmaceutical companies and agricultural corporations have been doing for years through the patenting of medicines and seeds that have been stolen from the shared ecological wisdom of indigenous and peasant cultures throughout the world.

    Be humble, and recognize that while permaculture may very well have a number of unique skills to offer, many of these skills and techniques have been around for hundreds of years.

    Stop Demonizing Small Peasants

    There are a number of very serious problems with how many small farmers in Central America and other parts of the world farm their lands. The effects of the Green Revolution on small farmers around the world have led to an almost complete loss of traditional farming knowledge in some rural communities

    The excessive use of pesticides and herbicides, burning crop residues, tilling hillsides, and other examples of ecologically damaging farming practices are obviously unsustainable, unhealthy, and damaging to the environment. The solution, however, is not to criticize these farmers, but rather to humbly seek to understand their situation.

    If you had an acre of land and 6 children to feed, would you prioritize permaculture farming solutions that might offer abundance a decade from now or would you continue to follow the well-trodden path that while unsustainable, does offer subsistence and income?

    Instead of criticizing small farmers who adopt unsustainable farming practices, it would be much more valuable to look at the sociological and systemic factors that lead to this adoption. Permaculture has not had much of a voice for advocacy, but it would be heartening to see permaculture “experts” around the world offer their voices to fight against unfair distribution of land instead of simply blaming small farmers for their “ignorance.”

    Start Farming Grains

    I understand that annual grain farming does come with a number of difficulties. The annual tillage of the land and the monocultures of one crop obviously present an ecological challenge. But you know what, agrarian communities around the world subsist on the farming of annual grains and that is not going to change. Even if you stoutly believe in developing a “food forest” or “stacked polycultures” of tree and perennial crops, dedicate at least a portion of your land to developing more ecological solutions for annual grain crops.

    It takes years for a perennial food system to develop enough to offer any sort of subsistence or income, and almost no small farmer around the world has enough savings or alternative sources of income to wait around for their system to develop into the marvelous and awe-inspiring productive systems that you see on a 20-year-old permaculture farm

    I´m not saying that we should throw out the idea of food forests or perennial crops, but avoid the tendency to offer those systems as the “only” way to grow food in an ecological and sustainable manner. When you show off your acres and acres of food forest to a small farmer in Central America, chances are that he or she might find it interesting but have little incentive to try and reproduce what you have created.

    If, however, you had a diversified landscape with an acre of food forest, an acre of pasture, and an acre of annual crops, there is a far better chance that your neighbors will find interest in what you´re developing.

    Despite the challenges, it is possible to grow grains in a sustainable, ecological fashion. Susana Lein of Salamander Springs Farm in rural Kentucky lived and worked in Guatemala for close to a decade. When she moved to her own farm in Kentucky, she started a no-till Fukuoka method of annual grain production that was adapted to the traditional corn and bean diet of Central American farmers. If she can do that in Kentucky, why aren´t more permaculturists doing the same in Central America, or experimenting with no-till rice harvests in Asia.

    Be Aware of Alternative Epistemologies

    The bread and butter of the permaculture movement is the PDC, or permaculture design course. The two-week curriculum has been offered by thousands of teachers in every part of the world and has been adapted to the specific and particular contexts of small farmers everywhere.

    Many of the folks who critiqued my first article argued that they offered free PDC´s to their neighbor farmers. While I find that commendable, I think it´s also important to recognize that many rural, peasant and indigenous communities don’t learn the same us westerners do.

    The pedagogy of a course with Power Point presentations, lectures and “visits” to the field might actually be so foreign to a small Guatemalan farmer that he or she might get nothing out of it. The Brazilian professor Boaventura Sousa Santos talks of the idea of epistemicide, the elimination of alternative forms of knowing through the colonization that comes through western academia and forms of learning.

    An NGO that I worked with in Guatemala found that the best way to “teach” small Guatemalan farmers had nothing to do with courses, workshops, agricultural schools, or the like. Rather, they simply brought small farmers from neighboring communities together to tour the farms and lands that each one worked.

    While one corn field may appear just like every other corn field to the untrained eye, these visits allowed for small farmers to learn of small variations in growing techniques, in seed saving, in the combination of companion plants, in soil preservation that many “experts” might never have noticed. At the same time, it allowed for small farmers to take pride in what they were doing which is so often criticized or ignored

    Perhaps the famous PDC needs to be laid to rest and other, more appropriate pedagogies developed if permaculture is going to find relevance with small farmers around the world

    Conclusion

    I truly hope that this article doesn’t come across as a futile and derisive attack on permaculture practitioners around the world. I do honestly believe (and hope) that permaculture has a lot to offer the world. We need to recognize, however, that what´s most important isn´t the content or subject in itself, but rather how it is presented with respect for the local autonomy of the placed agrarian communities around the world.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-roberts/how-to-decolonize-the-per_b_14501784.html

    On – 31 Jan, 2017 By Tobias Roberts

  • Alternative Energy – Reasons To Consider Solar Power

    Alternative Energy – Reasons To Consider Solar Power

    Alternative Energy – Reasons To Consider Solar Power

    The waste products generated by the manufacture of non-renewable energy that most of us use today is now known to be very harmful to the environment. Emissions of carbon-based pollution and nuclear waste, to name just two, are extremely toxic to ourselves and our planet. This message seems to have finally hit the target for governments and ordinary people too. And the demand for alternative energy sources such as solar energy is increasing.

    The other reason for this movement towards the use of other energy sources is that the fossil fuels used to produce energy we use today is also declining, and what remains becomes more difficult and more expensive to source. We all saw what happened with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year. If you want to know more about the damage to the environment of other human beings, I suggest you get a Coy award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and is prepared to be more than a little worried.

    Therefore, it is that solar energy entering the equation as a serious response to the aforementioned problems. The sun’s rays are certainly a source that is obtained in large quantities and is constantly renewed and clean, green and eco-friendly!

    There are some excellent reasons exactly why solar power alternative is an exceptional choice. For starters, you’ll see some real savings in your month of monthly electricity bill (in fact you can reach a point where you avoid the use of an energy company that is) In addition, you may also see an increase in your property value when you come to sell it. Think about the extra things you can repair that were not in your budget, for us we were able to get that air conditioning repair we desperately needed, we had stopped using it all together since it had become so inefficient.

    There are a variety of ways you can use solar energy sources, you can use a very small system as an auxiliary power source ie water heating, or perhaps the power of a solar oven to cook your food, or It can be used to provide lighting for your house or yard. Or what about the air conditioning system, which depends on the network, which may at any time of the blackout summer or winter? Sure, you could go all the way and install a system that will power everything in your house.

    Very few people now, who intend to build or have built new homes, choose solar energy systems over conventional energy. One reason for this has to do with the low costs of replacement and maintenance associated with the installation of this form of energy. The other reason is, of course, not having to count or pay for an electric power company. Some states also offer tax incentives and other financial aid, grants, etc., to those who choose to install alternative energy in their homes.

     

    http://latestsolarnews.com/alternative-energy-reasons-to-consider-solar-power/

    On – By Abigale Sherman

  • Energy storage key to reliable solar power systems

    Energy storage key to reliable solar power systems

    To sustain the growth profile of alternative energy systems like solar power, experts have stressed the need for the deployment of effective and quality energy storage systems like batteries.

    In an interview with the Founder and Executive Director of Greenicles Solar, Lanre Okanlawon, he said there is a gradual shift from the previously cynical and doubtful stance evident of about three years ago, to a more receptive and positive outlook, stating that public perception is changing.

    Okanlawon said: “In 12 months, the Solar Nigeria programme alone installed solar electricity for 170,000 homes across Nigeria. This and many other successful projects carried out by solar power installation companies have positively impacted the market and reduced reliance on the unstable power from PHCN.”

    He added that apart from achieving power independence, many customers confirm there has been money savings and elimination of noise from generators by going solar.

    However, he said there is an area of concern that seems to be causing dissatisfaction among a small but vocal number of customers. “Because solar panels generate electricity only when exposed to sunlight, they are heavily reliant on an energy storage medium to store the power generated during the day for use at night. This is where batteries become very essential for solar power applications,” he said.

    He recalled that there had been much development in battery energy storage for solar power applications globally. Batteries have been found to ease the deployment of solar to both the most advanced societies and the most remote parts of the world.

    According to him, a typical solar power system consists of solar panels, a charge controller, inverter, circuit breakers and a bank of batteries. On average, the batteries make up, at least, 40 per cent of the total material cost of a typical solar power system in Nigeria, that is, an off-grid or hybrid solar electricity system.

    “This is quite understandable due to its significant role of storing power and providing power backup at night or on cloudy days,” he added. He explained that due to lack of technical know-how some installers fall short of taking the necessary steps to determine the suitable battery storage capacities needed by their customers. Failure to do this, results in poor performance and total energy discharge, which ultimately lead to shortened battery life.

    According to him, in 2016, battery energy storage systems installed by Greenicles Solar across Nigeria stored more than 30 megawatt-hours of electricity.
    Speaking on the issue of substandard and counterfeit batteries in the market, Okanlawon advised that batteries should only be purchased from reputable dealers and distributors, especially those who provide product warranty.

    He added, “Obvious fake identification markers on batteries are misspellings, faded colours on the labels and badly constructed battery casings. Also, he said spurious claims about battery capacity and number of cycles are recognizable give-aways that they are fake. Blurred manufacturers’ logos are also quite common in the underworld markets of batteries for solar power applications.”

    https://guardian.ng/business-services/energy-storage-key-to-reliable-solar-power-systems/

    On – 24 May, 2017 By Contributors

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