wobbol / solar-protocol

A repository in development for a solar powered network of servers that host a distributed web platform. Project by Tega Brain, Alex Nathanson and Benedetta Piantella. Supported by Eyebeam Rapid Response for a Better Digital Future fellowship.

Solar Protocol

A system for load balancing and serving content based on photovoltaic logic.

A repository in development for a solar powered network of servers that host a distributed web platform. Project by Tega Brain, Alex Nathanson and Benedetta Piantella. Supported by Eyebeam Rapid Response for a Better Digital Future fellowship.

Content at solarprotocol.net is served by whichever server in our network is in the most sunlight at a given time. (We are basing this off of the solar module wattage.)

It is a decentralized network. Each server checks in with the other devices and independently determines if it should be the 'point of entry' (poe) for the system.

Server stewards have the ability to host their own content on the devices as well.

Solar Protocol is an art project exploring the poetics of internet infrastructure; as well as an education and research platform for exploring energy efficient and energy aware web design; and ecologically responsive internet protocols, among many other things.

Our work is inspired by the great work done previously by the folks at Low Tech Magazine.

Installation

https://github.com/alexnathanson/solar-protocol/blob/master/installation.md

API documentation

https://github.com/alexnathanson/solar-protocol/blob/master/API.md

Hardware install notes

Notes in a doc here

Hardware Troubleshooting & Maintenance

https://github.com/alexnathanson/solar-protocol/blob/master/troubleshooting-and-maintenance.md

Collaborate with us!

This is a growing global collaborative project and there are many ways to contribute. Some tasks that a volunteer could take on are listed below. Please get in touch if you would like to contribute in some way.

Software development

• Enable better network analytics
• Refactor the admin console
• Write a script to periodically run a software update automatically
• Write a script to run the backend processes based on battery status, rather than just time

Design

• Admin console redesign
• Solar Protocol header for steward pages

Content

• Do you have a great idea for something that could make use of this unique system? It could be an art project, research project, essay, etc.

Other

• Can you conduct an LCA of the hardware we use?
• Can you help identify an accurate way to quantify the energy consumed by transferring data across the internet?