Solar Lantern Reparability
Over a billion people in the world still lack access to a basic electrical need: lighting. One of the current solutions to this problem is to provide affordable and useful solar lanterns to people of the global south. The major drawbacks of these solutions are that some solar lanterns are likely to...
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| Format: | master thesis |
| Publication Date: | 2022 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repository: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Language: | English |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/379441 |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/379441 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Solar batteries -- Maintenance and repair -- Testing Flashlights -- Maintenance and repair -- Evaluation Bateries solars -- Manteniment i reparació -- Proves Llanternes -- Manteniment i reparació -- Avaluació Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica::Instrumentació i mesura |
| Summary: | Over a billion people in the world still lack access to a basic electrical need: lighting. One of the current solutions to this problem is to provide affordable and useful solar lanterns to people of the global south. The major drawbacks of these solutions are that some solar lanterns are likely to break easily and are difficult to repair. These products are meant to help people in the global south but end up being useless. Repairability of these solar lanterns may seem insignificant in the fight for energy access, but solar lanterns provide lighting, and are the first step to full energy access. Being able to repair these products extends the duration of their usefulness and thus their widespread implementation. Throughout this thesis I took information from multiple data sources, which started with researching literature. It is important to know the current scope of research to be able to continue working in the right direction. After this, I performed practical measurements on selected solar lanterns while simultaneously conducting interviews with experts in various field, while also continuing my literary research. The technical measurements involved testing the performance of the solar lanterns quantitatively, while testing the design was done qualitatively. Interviewing experts helped establish the correct procedure for testing these lanterns and determined which criteria was prioritized when evaluating reparability. The end goal will be setting a new and improved standard that encourages reparability as one of the important aspects in the design. With this research I hope to contribute to the debate on repairability by exploring a set of aspects which will newly consider repairability of products. Addressing the issue of repairability will most importantly affect the people of the global south who will benefit from higher accessibility to light, reliability of light, and raising the quality of life. For this thesis the main research question thus is: How repairable are solar lanterns and which criteria are important to determine this? |
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