"Agricultural Electronics" exits in bits and pieces already throughout the world but more so in developed countries. I have few thoughts here that I am going to put down.

India is predominantly an agricultural country. Crops that are dependent on rain in my state are grown between June and November. Fruits, vegetables are all either river or deep ground water dependent. When rains become unpredictable, water source from rivers become scarce; dependency on borewells increases.

Most of the Agricultural Borewell pumps over 3 HP run on 3 phase 3 wire (Delta) 440V AC. Power crunch results in thr......

I wanted to understand the cost versus benefits of investing in Rooftop solar for powering homes between 7and 10PM everyday.

Here is what I have and I am thinking aloud. So please feel free to comment on my thoughts:

225 Watts x 2 = 450W @ Rs. 60/Watt = Rs. 27,000.00
100AH x 2 Lead Acid batteries = 7,500 x 2 = Rs. 15,000.00
12V @ 200AH or 24V @ 100AH = 2400WH- Total Available Power
1KVA Pure Sinewave Inverter = Rs. 10,000.00
Battery Charger 450W/14.4 (LA Float Voltage) = 31.25A
On an average we can assume 20A of charge current being available from a 450W panel at 14.4V. So the battery charge time woul......

Let's consume less by making the appliances more efficient and you have to produce that much less energy, means we emit that much less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The points below are taken from Public Domain. I have compiled it so one can take a look at our impact on the environment.

What is Green Energy?

•         Environmentally Friendly

•         Non Polluting

•         Clean Technologies

•  ......

Continued from Part 1:


Sensors, Smart Meters etc: After the office hours, can you either dim or turn off the lights based on motion sensors? Public usage areas can make avail of this motion sensor technologies. Like I said earlier, you have a large rooftop area that is invariably not utilized. Now on weekends and holidays if the energy produced by the panels is not utilized by the facility, can this energy be fed back to the grid? Can we claim credit for the energy that is fed back to the grid? This can be done by smart metering that accurately measures the power that is being generated and fed back to th......

I have wanted to write about Green Buildings and Homes for a while. Here are my thoughts on Green Buildings and Homes.

Let’s first define “Green”. Green in a broad sense anything that is Environmentally Friendly. How do we make any building partially green?

Three basic things that one can look at for making a difference: 

a.   The Power saving advantages of CFL over Incandescent is already well known. Now the drawback of CFLs is being looked at. These is mercury content in CFLs, the power factor of the CFLs, THD and Noise that is introduced on th......

Part 2 of this article discusses the possibilities to address the following parts with the help of electronics:

1. Remote borewell operation

Today the borewell starters sense the presence of three or single phase power and turn on the borewell pump automatically. Unless there is an operator present, to channel the water or water a different sector of the farm, water output of up to 100 to 300 liters per minute will continue to flow mostly to undesirable sectors.

Sectors: Let me explain what this is. Say you have a 3 acre of farm. This three acres will be divided into say three secto......

I apologize for not been able to write part 2 sooner.  I am back.

so 10W of LED lighting, 12V, 6AH lead acid battery, Panel size depending on the time within which you want your battery charged.

Solar Panel output is say 15W/Sq. Ft. 14.4 V * 6 A = 86.4W. Consider you get an average of 10W/Sq. Ft throughout the day out of a panel. So 10W or 1 Sq.FT of panel will charge your battery in approximately 8.64 or 9 Hours. 15 Watts in panel output will do it in 6 hours and so on. 

Let us start with Lead Acid Battery Charging Part. The 12V Lead Acid Battery, not considering temperature c......

The best way to understand the intricacies of a simple home lighting using solar is to make one.
Let's start with "Solar Constant" Solar constant is a misnomer for it is not really a constant. The value varies between 1350 to 1370 W/sq. meter. Solar radiation received at any given moment is solar constant times the earth's cross sectional area. Since only half the spherical area is exposed to the sun, the area is Pi * Diameter Squared / 4. Where Diameter is earth's diameter. Average solar power per unit area is 1/4 of the solar constant.
So 1350/4 =340W/m^2. Out of this amount 30% is reflected back to t......

On another note, did the folks in the power community get a chance to attend the Design Seminar held at Lalit Ashok in Bangalore on March 25th, 2009? What was your opinion?

All the older Unitrode power supply design seminars are on the web at
http://focus.ti.com/analog/docs/training.tsp?familyId=64

If you have questions on any of the power converter topologies or regarding any articles, please let me know and I will be happy to answer or get you the answers.

Ram

It’s time we try out alternative sources of energy

For emerging economies like India and China, which are hungry for power, it should be possible to add a residential wind mill generating about 200W of average power. Having lived in India, I think the proposed wind mill will have to fulfill the following criteria as a minimum but not limited to:

1. Ease of installation and service
2. Reasonable useful span of life (at least 10 years)
3. Charge the household UPS/Inverter batteries - a priority
4. Either aid in powering the homes or feed the energy back to the grid when the ho......