Uganda - Part 3
“We can be friends on Face Book!” exclaimed Florence, figuring it was the best way that we could stay in touch with each other since I live on the other side of the world from her. She grabs my forearm and shuffles me off to the main living area of her home where she and her husband keep a wi-fi modem. We both grab our cell phones, excited at this prospect of communication. We’ll need to try to connect to the internet so that we can find each other on the social media page. The modem is charged in the daytime by the two solar panels installed on the roof of the couple’s home. It is their digital umbilical cord to the rest of the world. Such a set-up is no doubt a rarity in this tiny Ugandan village.
Unfortunately the box isn’t working today. “Oops”, she explains, “Because of the rain and thunderstorms today, the sun wasn’t out long enough to give us a good charge.” Understanding the intermittent nature of renewables, this made perfect sense.
In the US, as states continue to ratchet up renewable portfolio standards, more and more we hear the warnings from electricity grid managers warning of the difficulty of balancing electricity supply and demand, as a larger portion of the grid’s energy sources are derived from solar and wind. The adage has become old at this point: “The sun doesn’t shine all the time, and the wind doesn’t blow predictably.”
We keep hearing that if we could just crack the code on battery storage, the problem would be solved. But the solution seems elusive.
However in countries around the world that struggle with access to electricity, solar panels seem to be a God-send. Leap-frogging over the need for installation of large transmission infrastructure and power plants that can provide reliable base load power, solar installations seem to provide a few small band-aids to the significant problem of energy poverty around the globe – for the lucky few.
Florence has an idea – we can head across the road to the school where the solar panels on the school perhaps still have some charge remaining since school is not in session. We make our way in the dark over to the school and fumble around looking for a key to open the door. Entering the room, we both seem pleasantly surprised that, when she flips the light switch, the light overhead comes on, illuminating the room.
Next she plugs the modem into the one lone wall socket and the blue lights of the box flicker. We spend the next thirty minutes searching Facebook to connect with each other. A miracle of the modern age that two friends who may or may not ever see each other in person again now have the opportunity to stay in touch through what seems like magic.
