How I get 24-Hours of power in Nigeria without a gen or "NEPA"

First of all, this is not a marketing post. I am just excited to share my experience with anyone who is willing to benefit from the joys of uninterrupted clean energy.

Power outages in Nigeria have been the norm for several decades but Nigerians have never gotten used to it and I don't think we will. From ECN (Electricity Corporation of Nigeria) to NEPA (Nigerian Electric Power Authority) to PHCN (Power Holding Company of Nigeria) to the present day privatization, sadly, the power situation hasn't changed. We have given the government fifty-odd years to prove themselves and I think it's high-time we take matters into our own hands.

Fortunately, Nigeria is blessed with  a lot of sunlight all year round due to it's geographical location and since December 2015, when I decided to tap into mother natures blessings, I have had uninterrupted power supply.

In this blog post, I am going to show you how to run on 24-hour of power by leveraging solar panels and energy efficient appliances. I am a big advocate of renewable energy(as you'll see from my blog posts) and I just had to put my money where my mouth was... as they say.

Okay, let's get right into it.

Charge your phone while riding your bike - Siva Cycle

After the Urine Powered Generator, Solar Cooker, Solar hand-bag and the shoe charger, SolePower, this has to be my favourite gadget yet. It's very simple and practical. Might just start riding again :-D

I'm sure most of us have had our smartphones run out of battery at least once... Siva Cycle has created a gadget to stop that from happening again.

Best part is, Siva Cycle have pledged to donate one of the devices to those in need for every 10 purchases... cool!

Watch the video below to see how it works; pretty sweet.

William Kamkwamba built his first windmill at 14

When he was just 14 years old, Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba built his family an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts, working from rough plans he found in a library book.

Watch his first TED presentation below.

Later on, after what I presume to have been an enlightening 3 years since his first TED appearance, he presented something new. Really inspiring stuff. watch the short video below.

Green Pavement makes Electricity

Paving slabs that convert energy from people's footsteps into electricity are set to help power Europe's largest urban mall, at the 2012 London Olympics site.

The recycled rubber "PaveGen" paving slabs harvest kinetic energy from the impact of people stepping on them and instantly deliver tiny bursts of electricity to nearby appliances. The slabs can also store energy for up to three days in an on-board battery, according to its creator.

The Potential

"Up to 52,000 people per hour pass through busy train stations. The average person takes around 200 million steps in their lifetime."

How Much Energy Do Your Home Appliances Use? VISIUALISATION

With this data visualisation tool, you can see how much power each of your appliances use. You can also see how much it costs ($) and how much it consumes in gallons of gas.

Clicking on various appliances turns them on or off. An overall energy consumption rate is calculated in the lower right corner of the tool.

TRY IT OUT 

A hair dryer uses more power than a room air conditioner. O_o