By: roderick

roderick — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:35:23 +0000

Something sounds wrong. It’s a remote area, yet you will have mobile phones, internet connection, and TV? If it’s a place that has this kind of thing, it probably has grid power. If not, you should look into buying a gas-powered generator when you get there.
Portable solar power, the kind that’s really useful, is not cheap, and I noticed that your question has the word, “affordable.” A system that puts out 200 watts is not hard to find, but the kind of run time you will get powering a small TV is maybe 20 minutes, powering a laptop, maybe half an hour. And then, it would take 7-10 sunny days to charge itself up again. Such a system has no chance of powering most microwave ovens. That’s what you get for $500. You would scale up if you want more runtime.
If you buy a rigid solar panel of 200W when you get there, you could use it to charge two car batteries, and run an inverter off those. That would give you several hours of runtime, but would not be portable at all. I would expect to spend $2000 on such a setup, and donate it to my host when I left.
The best advice I can give you may be to live as the natives do. That will make your experience richer, anyway. If they use kerosene lamps, or open fire, then do your work by that light. If they cook in an underground pit, or with a solar oven, or eat most of their food raw, you do that, too. All of the appliances you list sound unnecessary, except possibly the laptop, and only if it’s used to control or automatically gather data from some equipment. To take notes, there’s always pen and paper.

By: gr8fires

gr8fires — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:35:23 +0000

ebay has a lot of reasonable kit on there for pv.
200w is alot though
there is a flexable panel which can be rolled up you may need to make a kit up using several items like this or perhaps one that charges some 12v batteries and your gear could run from them via an inverter. All depends on how much kit you want to trail out there.

By: John W

John W — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:35:23 +0000

There are panels at Maplins, but I don’t know if 200W is really feasible to carry around. Don’t forget you also need regulators, batteries and ac converters. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?crit...

By: misslola

misslola — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:35:23 +0000

http://www.solarenergysystems.ie

Comments on: Where Can I Buy Affordable Home Solar Power?

By: roderick

By: gr8fires

By: John W

By: misslola