Green IT Environment

Schematic

03.10.2014
The meeting with the employees from YEL went as follows: Dave and I showed them our idea about the “Green Grid” (Hydro Power + Solar Power + Backup Battery / Genset) and they were like: “Go for it!” I showed them a video where you could see a traditional water wheel and some easely done speed transformation, to power on a car-alternator. They really liked this ide because you could make it by yourself/recycled materials. Even though a low head microhydro turbine would be much more efficient, they prefered the water wheel (as I was expecting). That means that I have to make some additional calculations, because there’s no one that tells you what power his fancy water wheel can transfer. For the generator I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to use a car-alternator (separately excited) or a permanent magnet generator (PMG). Even though the car-alternator can be used from recycled cars, the need of a voltage applied could become a problem if the system gets broken (or whatever) and the battery runs low. That’s exactly what happened with the solar power plant (a lightning strike damaged the charge controllers) – the batteries ran low and now they are all extremely sulfated and damaged. To prevent this to happen in my system, it would be wise to use a PMG even tough you can’t just go to the nearest junk yard and get one out.

2.10.2014
During the afternoon, I was working on the green IT-Environment project and made the calculations for the hydro power generator. There are two interesting ways to solve it: Firstly, we could use a tradition water wheel, which is a real eyecatcher and people will easily understand the concept of the generator. The second idea brings with a higher efficiency as the first one and is therefore used nowadays: a low head microhydro turbine. The disadvantage of the turbine is the fact that the case is a closed one made of steel – people can’t see how it works and it therefore could be seen as some magic thing happening. We’ll take to the other employes tommorow to see which version they’d prefer.

01.10.2014
The restaurent in the EcoLodge in Bukit Lawang (I’m going to upload some pics as soon as I’m there) is in need of renovation and Dave as an IT expert is responsible for putting in some wifi and a modern cashier system. A system like that brings with some serious problems in Indonesia, because the temperature is around 30°C and the humidity is 70-90%. Since an air conditioner or an air dehumidifier are no option in a sustainable, eco-friendly environment, we had to find another solution. First I was thinking about evaporative cooling, but this won’t work at a humidity level this high. After some brainstorming (with was kind of hard for me because of the jetlag), we found a possible solution: Cooling with oil. This will solve the problem of the humidity (water has a higher density than oil and will therefore sink to the ground) and we’ll see if we can realise a passive or an active cooling (just google “pc oil” if you’re interested).

Another topic was the electrical energy: There’s two kind of power sources in Bukit Lawang – we can use the diesel-generators (uuugh!) or the solar power plant (ieeei) to power the system. The problem about the solar power is that the system can’t save enough energy through the day and that the batteries run dry in the night – that’s no option for a server. It’s clear that we have to find our own power source to gain a stable system. Since there’s to less wind to harvest for a wind turbine, the only two sustainable ressources are the sun and the water. The EcoLodge already has a solar power plant, so we thought about a hydroelectric power station.