A new Stanford University study claims that solar-powered drip irrigation systems can be used to irrigate farms and improve yields in Sub-Saharan Africa on an equal cost basis with liquid-fuel systems. One great part about the setup is the simplicity — the systems use no battery. They run only when the sun is up, which is not a problem during the dry season.
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The systems (implemented by SELF) developed in the article use 780 Watt arrays and were designed to charge a 0.5 hectare group plot. If anyone has ideas on how to implement a functional and much smaller scale version (30 Watts or less), please let us know your detailed plans and we can subsidize the material costs.
The full article including some detailed economic analysis is here. Article on Stanford’s site is here.
Update: A company in Japan approached us about their solar pump system. They seem to have systems using as little as 25 Watts. You can see the details here. If you have experience with other systems, let us know.

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