To solve the issues of lacking medical facilities in rural areas, a startup from Fraunhofer Gesellschaft has introduced a mobile clinic. S Mile’s Vehicle Integrated PV System in Africa will have 2 frames of solar arrays. They offer a wide range of services in the vehicle including cooling, energy and telecommunication.
Germany-based Fraunhofer Gesellschaft has developed a compact vehicle. But it is not just any vehicle, it has an integrated photovoltaic (PV) system with medical support equipment. The idea behind this S Mile vehicle is to provide off-road and off-grid mobile healthcare facilities in rural communities.
They offer an easy energy management system supply for maintaining a cold chain to keep vaccines, samples and medicines intact. This vehicle-integrated photovoltaic (VIPV) mobile system is built on pickup trucks. They are easily and commercially available with mobile clinics and will be suitable as their first target market.
S Mile offers purchase, rent or lease options on their products for easy and quick access to all. An NGO in the Mpumalanga province, South Africa, used this prototype system for almost a year.
Further, for other applications requiring a mobile or remote solution, the company is planning to develop more products. This may include tourism or environmental conservation.
In this regard co-founder and networks manager at the Fraunhofer Innovation Platform, Martin Hamann added, “Short-term requirements by the customer, such as providing immediate disaster relief or running a medical campaign, will favour a rental agreement. Longer term needs, such as performing research in the field, could be a leasing agreement. Customers who want to provide permanent services, such as dedicated mobile clinics or field labs, will tend to purchase the unit.”
New Prototypes
Now they are working towards a second pickup-truck based prototype for northern Namibia. The latest version has 10 flexible monocrystalline cells installed in two frames that provide output of around 1650W. Each frame has 5 panels providing 825W and overall system weighs around 75 kilograms.
One frame is installed on the top of vehicle and another one is a pull-out frame. According to Hamann, a single person can easily deploy the PV array in just 5 minutes. Also, it will only take 8.4 meters square when fully opened.
The S Mile’s Vehicle Integrated PV System in Africa will enable not only electricity generation but other components too, like water treatment and storage. It may also be used for telecommunications and cooling purposes.
“The key enabling technology breakthrough is the smart integration of various infrastructure solutions into a small and elegant unit with a simple user interface. Great care was taken to improve the robustness of the design to better withstand the harsh conditions such as dust and temperature extremes in Africa,” added Hamann.
He also emphasized that the design has a lower capital and operational cost investment in comparison to a conventional mobile clinic.
Martin Hamann said, “The collaboration resulted in the development of a self-sufficient unit with integrated, modular and interchangeable components for the treatment and storage of water, generation and storage of electricity, onboard production and storage of disinfection, onboard cooling and telecommunications functionalities.”
Source: Electric Truck with Fully Integrated Photovoltaics Picks Up Speed
