Recording of the webinar: Making a 10-year lifetime Solar eCooking Battery for Rural Africa

We are pleased to share the recording of our webinar “Making a 10-year lifetime Solar eCooking Battery for Rural Africa” which took place on Wednesday 27th of November 2024, at 16:00-17:00 (GMT).

The session was moderated by Dr Simon Batchelor, (OBE), from Gamos Ltd., and saw presentations by Robert Van Buskirk, Chief Executive Volunteer at Solar4Africa, and Skyler Selvin, PhD Candidate at Stanford University and volunteer Engineer at Solar4Africa. Skyler is designer of the lithium-titanate (LTO) battery being built by Kachione LLC in Malawi.

A key problem with designing a battery for off-grid eCooking, is that a user might cook 3 to 5 dishes per day, which for a low-capacity battery can result in cycling the battery more than 10,000 times over 10 years. During the webinar, Robert Van Buskirk and Skyler Selvin outlined how this technical and economic challenge can be solved with a custom-designed LTO battery. They compared the economics and performance of different battery chemistry options and outlined the process of designing a custom eCooking battery. They described the design of their high-performance, low-cost, long-lasting battery and the assembly process for producing the batteries from pouch cells purchased from manufacturers. The features and performance ratings of the battery and the battery management system (BMS) was also described. Robert and Skyler concluded the session by describing their ambitions for rolling out LTO batteries for eCooking in Africa at larger scale over the coming years.

Watch the recording of the webinar here:

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Featured image courtesy of Robert Van Buskirk and Skyler Selvin, 2024.