Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Yes it is time to discuss electricity (Umeme) again.  Why?  I don't know because I have not done so in a while.  Because I had to fix several electrical items on site this week.  Because I never discussed putting the solar system on the headmaster's house.  Because I can't think of anything else specific to talk about.  Who knows.   after electricity installed before electricity installed As part of the discussion we will also talk about the water pump system at the school site.  Today when I went to site, I was told it quit working.  After about an hour long discussion they had a problem with the generator and took it to a local repair shop to get it fixed but they have not gotten any electricity from the generator to the well pump since getting it back.  Typically that would indicate the repair person fixed the gasoline engine disconnected a part of the system that generates electricity or allows it to flow from the ele...

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...