Efficient ways to recharge your mobile phone battery without NEPA/PCHN

With the poor and unreliable services people are getting from Nigeria's power company, it's only normal to see a lot of people have one thing negative or another to say about them.

The Power Holding Company of Nigeria - PHCN or NEPA as they are commonly called are the sole providers of public electricity in Nigeria. They operate in a sort of monopolistic industry where they alone control the generation and distribution of electricity. It can be almost impossible in Nigeria to have electricity without having anything to do with NEPA.

Some Nigerians recharge their mobile phones on a daily basis and some who have good phones can wait to recharge at least every 2 days. It can be hard relying on the PHCN's electricity in order to recharge your phone and so most people tend to make use of power generators as a backup.

Making use of generators just to recharge mobile phones doesn't make economic sense as they are designed to produce much more power that would be eventually wasted if it was just used for charging your phone, except if you were running a battery recharging business.

There could come a time when you just need a bit of electricity just to recharge one or two mobile phone's battery and it would be uneconomical to fuel and power a generator just to recharge those phones. What other options do you have?

Alternatives to recharging your phone apart from using NEPA/PHCN
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There are several other ways you can recharge your mobile phone or tablet without having to make use of NEPA or Power generators:

- Solar mobile battery chargers: These are basically a combination of photo-voltaic solar cells which can convert sunlight to electricity in order to recharge your phone. They come in cheap and it comes cheaper if it doesn't have an internal battery. Solar chargers work by capturing light from the sun and using it to move electrons which can then be passed across to a connected device in order to charge the battery.

Solar charges are climate friendly since they don't need power from the grid and don't make use of fuels. It simply traps sunlight and generates electric charges which can be used to top up a mobile device's battery. Since mobile phones and small devices require about 5V of charge, most solar chargers are designed to operate within that range and can conveniently recharge a phone's battery as long as there is sunlight.

The advantage is has over a battery bank is that it doesn't need power from the grid and so can minimize your power bill.

- Battery bank: A battery bank is basically a device that contains a battery which can be charged and discharged. The definition may seem a bit small but encompasses a lot of other areas. Actually, there are specific devices that act as battery banks which allow you to recharge your phone when there is no light. It comes with a suitable plug that can connect to your mobile's phone's charging port in order to charge it independently. I bought one from Konga and I'm loving it! You could also make use of other sources of battery bank like your laptop, UPS or an inverter battery system.

The device or battery bank's charge would eventually be depleted by the amount of charge that is transferred to your mobile phone plus heat loss. I've used a custom designed battery bank as well as my laptop and UPS to recharge my phone when there is no NEPA.

The advantage is has over Solar charges is that it can work anytime as long as it has been pre-charged. It can work when there is no sunlight. It can also be connected to a solar charger or the power grid.