Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Today I want to bring back an issue we have discussed in different ways in the past.  Most notable was a discussion of the electricity usage for the country vs the state of SC during the constant blackouts during last year's hydroelectric plant shut down. So this time let's talk about the specific use of a household in SC.  According to  http://www.electricitylocal.com/states/south-carolina/  the average residential home in SC uses 37.3 kiloWatthours per day.  For those that struggle with the metric system, that is 37300 Watt hours per day. With the contributions by the mission team in September, we have now installed solar powered generated electricity to all of our buildings .  Each major building and several smaller ones have their own power generating stations (not substations) totaling 475 Watts of production.  After taking in efficiency and number of direct sunlight hours I calculate that is 3.6 kiloWatt  hours per day.  So our en...

Last week I taught Barnabas and a Peace Corp Volunteer friend how to set up an extra electric (umeme) outlet in their new residence.  Yes that is my friend Kyle who came to visit at the site.  Fortunately his organization he extended with has provided him with a residence in town near their site and he is starting to get to work on some projects with them.  This unfortunately means he will not be joining the FDM site but it is good for him. So his new residence has one electrical outlet on wall opposite of his bed so he wanted an outlet near his bed.  Most (all affordable) extension cords in town have a short cord typically one meter in length.  We planned to do this work on Sunday because for some Tanzania reason they are shutting off the power in several regions (like shutting off electricity in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia) every Sunday for the next three months.  They are doing this to install or switch over some electrical equipment ...