The American University in Cairo

School of Sciences and Engineering

Community Based ICT for Education, Training, and Employment

By

Hassan Essam El-Tahan

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Physics major

Under supervision of:

Dr. Salah Arafa

September, 2015

1. Introduction

2. Solar energy

3. Methodology

4. Estimated and operational cost

5. Connections

6. Conclusion and recommendations

7.

1. Introduction

Information and communication technologies (ICT) is known to be the extension of the

information technologies (IT) nowadays. ICT enable users to communicate, search, store

information through various channels of technology. ICT acronym is merging the most there

important words in the world together, it is meant to connect the information with the

communication devices with the latest technologies to be widely spread. Another way to mention

the ICT is that it used the technology to collect and make use of the existing data and information

to make it available and ready to be used by the users. In our daily life we use ICT methods, for

example, the accounting software in the shops, computer aided designs, word processing on

computers, or even searching for specific data using computer and internet.

Nowadays, as the result of high speed data travel and high speed internet, ICT is

somehow affected the economic and business growth. Accordingly, connecting remote areas in

the world or in specific countries was so easy and this contributed in changing rural people life

as the ICT made it easier for these people to get the information and news. Mainly it decreased

the boarders between remote areas and made them somehow connected to each other.

This is was how ICT connect those people who live in remote places. New technologies

now helping in connection both rural and urban areas. And now the question is how to make ICT

accessible in these rural and remote areas? Rural people have the right to get accessibility to such

technology as the first step of development. “ICT is becoming the largest distribution platform of

providing public and private services to millions of people in rural and poor areas. Market

information, financial services, education and health services had largely been unavailable in

those areas in the past due to lack of connectivity of any kind. Now the wireless platform is

promoting NEW economic and social opportunities at all levels for the poor population.”

Mentioned by Christine Qiang in her article ICT for development. In the same article the author

shows how the low income communities are affected by a high growth rate in the telecom field.

In other words, the unconnected people seems to be in their way to be connected.

Egypt is one of the most prominent countries in the Middle East and Africa. It doesn’t

only enjoy a strategic geographical location but also it acts as a political leader in the region.

Egypt’s population is more than 89 million (CAMPAS Egypt(, it is one of the most populated

countries not only in the MEA region but also in the whole world. According to the World

Factbook, arranged from the highest to least population, China is the most populated country in

the world followed by India and Egypt is number 16 out of 238 countries in the world (CIA.gov).

High populated countries face the problems of poverty and unemployment, but especially in

developing countries this problem is escalating day by day. Poverty rates in Egypt reached

26.3% as stated by CAMPAS, and with this high poverty rate we are facing also high

unemployment rates. As stated in the World Factbook that unemployment rate in Egypt is 13.4

(CIA.gov). There are many issues Egypt needs to address in order to succeed and try to decrease

these rates. One of these issues is that in Egypt, more than half of the population is living in rural

areas, as stated by the World Bank that 57% of the population are living in rural areas

(WorldBank.org). People living in rural areas are facing more problems than those living in

urban areas.

2. Solar energy

Solar cells are devices used to make the best use of sunlight. Solar cell convert sunlight

into electricity that can be used for home, hospitals, or any kind of places which use electricity.

Solar cell absorb sunlight and produces both current and voltage that can be used as electrical

power. Solar cells are placed on any place that have an excellent contact with the sun, for

example home roof is the best place for the cells as there will be no shade on the panels. System

is designed to have the best contact with the sun and have the maximum peak hours during

sunlight hours. Best contact means that it has to be away from any shade, shade can cut the

efficiency of the solar panel to the half or more. The orientation of solar panels is designed

according to the nature of each place. Some places need a tracking systems to be installed in

order to absorb the maximum amount of energy. And in another places it is considered as in

efficient to have tracking system, like in Egypt companies uses non-tracking system as it absorb

the same amount of energy all year round. There are also some alternate orientations that can be

made especially for specific season or specific days of the year.

People and scientists were looking for an alternative sources of energy as result of the

high costs of the currently used energy sources. Scientists are also trying to depend on and invent

new sources to replace the current non-renewable sources which are commonly used. People

discovered that we don’t use the greatest energy source we have ever had, the sun. Sun is the

greatest energy source know, it is known also that it was readily available for us to use.

William Adams discovered back in 1876 that the selenium produces electricity when it is

exposed to the sun. But later on some scientists mentioned that selenium cells were not that

efficient but this discovery proofed that the light can be converted into electric energy.

Later on 1953, Calvin fuller, Gerald Pearson, and Daryl Chapin, made the great discovery

of the solar cell. But this time they used efficient cells than can produce electricity for small

devices. This was the first step in discovering new renewable source of energy. A lot of research

then was dedicated to develop good cells to have bigger and more efficient output of these cells.

Newspaper that time mentioned that invitation as the beginning for a new era of efficient

renewable energy

After about three years solar cells were commercially available, but it was very expensive

as any new technology invitation comes into consumer market at their first stages. Scientists

were working on developing the cell to lower their costs and be more efficient relative to their

output power. This was the date when the first radio powered by solar cell appeared and some

toys that depends on solar cells. That was such a great invitation at that time.

Later on United States and soviet began to use solar powered satellites in their space

programs. In addition, by the end of 1960 solar cells were standard in manufacturing the space

satellites. That was such a great development to use it in space as it were so efficient for their

journeys. That was the trigger for scientist to work on the development of solar cells.

On the begging of 1970s, the price of solar cell has been reduced five times per watt.” In

the early 1970's a way to lower to cost of solar cells was discovered. This brought the price down

from $100 per watt to around $20 per watt. This research was spearheaded by Exxon. Most off-

shore oil rigs used the solar cells to power the waning lights on the top of the rigs.” As Will

Reece mentioned in his article the history of solar energy.

Since then, there was a change in the use of solar energy. They are used in a lot of fields

like for lightening, powering remote homes, and connecting the remote area for example,

watering desert wand turning it to green areas. And today we can see solar towers everywhere to

generate electricity for on grid or off grid networks.

Fig.

(1). this

chart

shows the decrease in prices from 1980 to 2020.

As we can see in figure 1 the prices of solar cell has dramatically decreased in the

previous 40 years per Kilo watt hour. It has been 150 dollar for KWh in 1970 and now it is

barely 30 cent. This also shows the development and the technology that forced the prices

decrease throughout all this years.

Fig. (2). This figure shows the world capacity for solar energy since 1996 till 2010.

Figure 2 shows the increase the usage of solar powered modules for 15 years which

shows that they are commonly used nowadays as a big contributor in generating the electricity in

world. This also shows that the development of this power source pushed it to be one of the main

sources used nowadays.

Egypt is known for its strategic location which helps in trading and tourism. Besides the

economic advantages of this location, Egypt is classified to belong to the global sun-belt. This

location give Egypt the advantage of using the solar energy. It was issued in 1991 in solar atlas

that Egypt enjoys 2900-3200 hours of sunshine annually.

>>>>>>>

3. Methodology

In my interview with Farah Reda, Human resources director in Edita company. I

interviewed her to know exactly what will the people who live in far places need from the ICT

center. She stated that they will need help in finding jobs, writing their CVs, getting data from

internet or letting access people to online trainings. She also stated that this would be helpful also

in making these people ready for the job selection process. For example, they can develop their

computer and internet skills by attending trainings or online lectures to be ready for the job

market nowadays.

>>>>>>>

4. Working experiment:

According to the previous interview the content of the ICT room:

Two LEDs light

Laptop

Router

Fan

All in one printer and scanner

Mobile charger socket

Projector

- Accordingly the following table provides the watt hour for every device:

Power consumption Power (Watt) Number of hours Energy (Watt per hour)

Laptop 5 8 40Router 10 8 80Two LEDs 40 8 320Fan 70 4 280All in one printer 30 2 60Mobile charger socket 60 2 120Projector 70 3 210Total 1110

Energy(Wh)= Power x Number of used hours

- There for our total Watt hour is 1110. So we will use 12 volts batteries with 100 Ah.

- Then accordingly :

Battey cycle 60 Percent

Losses factor 20 Percent

Autonomy Days 2 Days

- Therefore, batteries capacity will be calculated to be: 4625 Wh

- According to system power consumption it would be better to use a 24 volts system.

Then the battery capacity in Ampere hour will be equals 192.7 (Ah)

- Number of batteries will be connected in series: 24/2 = 2 batteries

- Number of batteries will be connected in parallel: 192.7/100 = 2 batteries

- Therefore there are two sets of batteries connected in parallel and every set is composed

of two batteries connected in series and we will have total number of 4 batteries

Average sun peak hours 5 hours

Panel power (Watt) 250

Power required by panels 222

losses factor 25 percent

Number of panels

therefor two panels connected in parallel are needed

Inverter Load 1 Kw

charge controller

therefor charge controller needed (24 V, 10A)

1110×20.6×0.8

=¿

462524

=¿

11105

=¿

111024

=46.25

46.255

=9.25 10 Amp

Estimation cost:

Battery 4 2150 8600PV modules 2 1750 3500Inverter 1 3500 3500charge controller 1 450 450mounting cost 1 800 800minor costs 1 1500 1500Total cost 18350

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

5. Connections

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

6. Conclusion

References:

Reece, Will. "The History Of Solar Power." Experience. Symplicity, n.d. Web.

Tamminen, Terry. "The Big Energy Debate That Solar Power Has Finally Won." CNBC. N.p., 21 Apr. 2015. Web.

Riley, Jim. "ICT - What Is It?" Tutor2u. Boston House, 23 Sept. 2012. Web. <http://www.tutor2u.net/business/ict/intro_what_is_ict.htm>.