SolarVillage

 
Testfield I - SolarVillage
 
"You can never change things
by fighting the existing reality.
To change something build a new model
that makes the existing obsolete.”

R. Buckminster Fuller      
 
 
 
Technology for a local energy supply
 

“Energy autonomy,” is the most important, overarching theme of the arriving Solar Age. The use of regionally-produced energy, from sustainable resources, makes possible not only a liberation from outside control… it makes it possible to create autonomous, networked structures, assembled from the growing subsistence systems, even in the most economically-impoverished and rich-in-sunlight regions on earth.
 
The fundamental thought behind the “Solar Power Village“ was born out of compassion, for the conditions in which the poorest people live, who are forced to burn the last remaining wood to be able to cook, and who have no prospects for a rich life, with simple technical possibilities. A real possible solution is made visible here, which is relevant for all areas of life.
 
Tamera created a “test field” for this idea, the Testfield 1. This is where Jürgen Kleinwächter’s inventions are tested and integrated into daily life, along with complementary elements like Scheffler mirrors and biogas digesters.
 
The main sources of mechanical power here are low-temperature Stirling motors. The Stirling motor, invented in 1815, is an engine that turns temperature difference into mechanical energy. The Stirling motor is thus an example of the transformation of a form of energy that is difficult to use (thermal energy) into the more easily-applied mechanical energy. The fundamental principle upon which this machine operates is not disintegration and breakdown, but creation and assembly.
 
When one considers how it functions, one notices that the Stirling motor does not derive energy from explosive expansion processes. It is not an explosion-machine, but a breathing or pulsating device.
 
It is thanks to father and son Kleinwächter that the Stirling principle has been applied to a temperature-range in which the sun’s energy is useable. The hot side of the motor is warmed by the sun, and thus this machine is the seed of a possible energy source for human settlement, which is independent and truly autonomous.
 
This modular system unites key, essential elements of a humane energy source for a new culture.
 

 
Contact / Support
 

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Solarvillage

The SolarVillage Technology Team hosts an introduction week

25th May – 2th June

Tamera`s technology team invites you to join us for 8 days of intensive introduction to the whole project of Tamera. The week will start with 5 days of general introduction to the work and basic thoughts of Tamera, while often eating and cooking at the test field.

The concluding 3 days we will offer a more intensive view into the technology projects and the solar test field. We invited especially for this time Jürgen Kleinwächter, long term cooperation partner of Tamera, physicist and inventor of the Solar Power Village system that is the core of the tested technology of our testfield (http://www.solarpowervillage.info/)

And we invited Horst Wagner theologian, remedial teacher and inventor working on energy processes with concentrated Oxygen and is the head of a centre for underprivileged children in Würzburg, Germany. Jürgen Kleinwächter and Horst Wagner have a close cooperation to develop decentralized energy supply systems, for a system that gives autonomy and abundance back to the people

This introduction week is not a practical workshop in Technology. It is, however, a great opportunity to get to know the technology team while getting to know Tamera in general.

 

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Solarvillage

News from the Solar Kitchen: “It's great to be on-sun!”

4th of June 2012

 

The technology team has moved to the solar kitchen and started a 3 months energy autonomy experiment. We will cook and live in and around the kitchen until August, testing and modifying the equipment there. We intend to fit a new storage tank to Jürgen Kleinwächter's hot oil solar system, so that we can store solar heat to supply the kitchen with electricity and use the cooker whenever it is needed. And we are working with input from Uli Stempel on biogas refrigerators – simple refrigerators removed from caravans, which can be modified to run on biogas. We are also cooking with biogas, improving the Scheffler mirror and are already living in energy-abundance.

SolarVillage

 
May 2012
 

We are now presenting the SunPulse Water project that we are planning for 2012, "Solar water pump for those who need it most." It's a significant upgrade to the already great beta-test model of Jürgen Kleinwächter's SunPulse that we have running in the testfield, coupled to a very interesting field-tested pump design and incorporating all the improvements we can. Take a look, and join us at Betterplace - SunpulseWater, to add comments and your support. Please help us to manifest this. Make a donation if you can. Spread the link to your friends and network.

Solarvillage

 

The more you know, the better it is for you, on the one hand – and the more responsibility you have on the other hand. Responsibility to bring autonomy to poorer people. We are living in the age of space travel – and we know how to manage the a satellite which is a closed system. We would not come to the idea that the astronauts in the space station are divided in two thirds poor and one third rich people, and that one group is doing the all the work and the others are not – they must cooperate. And what we do not realize is that we are already living on a big satellite, one that is much nicer than the technical ones, one that is covered with a fantastic biology, with the ecosphere and we are on our way to destroy it ….

 

Extract from Jürgen Kleinwächter´s inaugural speech (15 Min) to the C-Star Academy in Chennai (India) on February 25th 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK_dIrMzVho&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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Education
 
 
September 2011

New Micro-Biogas Plant

Together with the urban planner and energy activist T. H. Culhane from the US, the participants of the Global Campus built a new, small biogas plant within three days and finished another one that had been started last year. With the organic kitchen waste of just one day, enough gas for two hours of cooking can be produced. This way the solar kitchen can be complemented with a biogas driven stove at night or during rainy days.  more...

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Solarvillage

Extension of Testfield 1 in 2011

Construction Phase of a Workshop for Training, Research and Maintenance

 

New concepts for local and as self-sufficient as possible energy supply are being developed in Tamera's TestField 1 and tested in everyday life. At the core stands Jürgen Kleinwächter's Solar Power Village technology. Energy is generated by a low-temperature Stirling engine – a technology that can be produced even under very simple conditions in subsistence economies. The question of energy storage is also well-solved in the Solar Power Village.

 

These innovative approaches also bring the possibility of independence when used in poor regions of the world. It is intended that representatives of peace-villages and other initiatives will accompany the construction and development of the technology from the very beginning. For this, and for further technological developments, the next construction phase of TestField 1 needs a workshop for training, research and maintenance. 

 

The existing single-storey, 240 m2 workshop will be upgraded to a 768 m2 building including usable loft space and 123 m2 of balcony. The workshop has so far served as a resource for the construction of Tamera's infrastructure. It will now serve a broader function as a research and training workshop for TestField 1 and for the Global Campus. The costs for the construction step of this year including the equipement for research and eduaction will be 480.000 Euro.

 

 

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Solarvillage
 
 
May 2010

An experimental biogas plant

for the SolarVillage-Field Test in Tamera

Eight months after the opening of the SolarVillage-test field in Tamera a new module is built, which will enable a self-sufficient energy supply for a village year round: a biogas plant. It will run the kitchen in the winter rainy season in the months where direct solar power often is not sufficient. more...

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Solarvillage
 
 
November 2009

Inauguration of the Test Field for a SolarVillage

Decentralized Solar Energy in the Alentejo

On October 17th, Tamera dedicated the Test Field for a SolarVillage, a model village for testing decentralized solar technology in everyday life. Based on the results, a SolarVillage – self-sufficient in energy and food production – will be built later as the core of a research and training institute. Its inventor, Jürgen Kleinwächter from Lörrach, Germany, said, “Our dream is building the first worldwide Solar University here.” more...

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Solarvillage
 
 
November 2009

Solarvillage.tamera.org

Launch of a New Website

During the opening of the SolarVillage test field the new website of the SolarVillage was launched. more...

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