Solar ovens and thermal solar power to heat your water is great if you have a steady place to live. But when a disaster strikes, such as an earthquake, landslide or flood, what are you to do? Engineers from earthquake-prone Turkey have created a portable, foldable solar power pack that can provide basic power services to homes and villages in the event of a natural disaster.
Turkey has also seen an influx of unstable populations of Syrian refugees over the years, along with North African migrants heading to Europe. This new solution could also help Lebanese living under the hands of terror factions and without a stable government creating chaos and power outages in Beirut, and basically all over Lebanon.
One unit can provide the power needs for 60 families.
The Turkish solar photovoltaic system or mini “power plant” puts out of 15 kW. And it can be installed in 15 minutes. A 15kW system can generate about 15,000 watts of power in the brightest days of the year, and this is equivalent to powering 500 laptops simultaneously. Factors like clouds, dust, temperature, and age of equipment will affect the affect actual power output.
The micro solar power plant, inventors say, is handy in case of disasters and for refugees. The same Turkish company is developing a portable hydropower turbine of up to 1 MW aimed for use on canals and small streams with little or no assembly required. Countries like Canada and the US are great for hydropower because of the streams and rivers. Drier countries, the sun is better.
Related: solar panels save energy-poor Lebanon
The portable mini solar power plant can be switched on in a second, with no mention of how to maintain the battery system which we know requires a certain kind of skill and finesse.
The market sees no shortage of mini solar power systems. Our friend bought one, twice, in Costco, for about $15,000 USD each time. Both winters when the system wasn’t maintained correctly, the batteries were destroyed – meaning that when a company says the system is “easy” and hassle free, we think it’s important to read the small print.
But Turks know how painful it can be without power: When a devastating earthquake hit Kahramanmaraş last year, Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources reached out to its homegrown company firm Türkiye Electromechanic Industry (Temsan) asking the engineers to develop a local solution to natural disasters.
Related: Solar panels save these sisters in Lebanon
Shoddy construction, old buildings made from natural materials, along with mismanagement and deceitful building practices mean that there are many casualties and chaos whenever Turkey has an earthquake. We hope this government-supported project can help Turkey develop its infrastructure.
The mini power unit called the Mobitem is a 2.5-meter-high container of 21 square meters in total.
