Abstrak 
Unpad’s DC House Prototype To Showcase An Alternative Solution To Rural Electrification
Mohammad Taufik, Taufik
Universitas Padjadjaran, The 1st International Conference On Rural Development And Community Empowerment, Jatinangor, West Java - Indonesia, November 21st 2015
Inggris
Universitas Padjadjaran, The 1st International Conference On Rural Development And Community Empowerment, Jatinangor, West Java - Indonesia, November 21st 2015
This paper presents the development of a DC house prototype to demonstrate the feasibility of an alternative method for rural electrification, especially in geographically hard-to-reach areas. The DC house offers a distributed low-power low-voltage DC residential electricity rather than the legacy centralized relatively high-power high-voltage AC system. As such the DC house method is an individual or family-based approach to rural electrification as opposed to the popular community-based approach to rural electrification. This in turn yields to an alternative solution that is scalable, affordable, and flexible. Equally important is that the DC house directly runs DC loads; thus, bypassing losses associated with the traditional AC voltage system. The DC House may also utilize human-powered energy sources, making it even more sustainable in producing off-grid electricity. The development of the DC house prototype at Universitas Padjadjaran along with its system components will be presented. The house has been designed to allow a maximum capacity of 600W provided by as many as three renewable energy sources (solar, hydro, and wind). Several DC loads are in place to mimic a small house as typically found in rural areas. Recent status of the prototype including the various projects that are being undertaken to complete the house will be discussed. Plans to enhance the DC house system and for its field testing to further demonstrate its feasibility for adopting the technology will also be summarized.