Access to electricity

In modern society, access to electricity is increasingly viewed as a fundamental necessity for a dignified life and some argue it should be seen as a human right. Indeed, it seems essential for basic needs such as lighting, heating, refrigeration for food and medicine, clean water supply, and access to healthcare and education. Reliable electricity enables modern communication, remote work, and participation in the digital economy, making it integral to economic mobility and social inclusion.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) aims to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy by 2030, recognizing that energy access is foundational to achieving other development goals, including poverty reduction, quality education, and gender equality. However, access to electricity is not explicitly recognized as a universal human right in international law.

For those without routine access to household electricity, batteries provide a good intermediate solution, especially the larger battery packs that include a converter to AC household electricity standards.

Twice a week, Irena plugs into these outlets to charge her CPAP battery pack.

CPAP battery life

Irena is without a home. She uses a machine to provide assistance with getting oxygen when sleeping. That CPAP machine runs on a battery. Keeping the battery topped up is a challenge.

Generally, a mid-sized battery in the 148–160Wh range can power most CPAP machines for one to two full nights. For example, a 148Wh battery can run a ResMed AirMini for approximately 20 hours or an AirSense 10 for about 14 hours.

However, using a humidifier or heated tubing can reduce battery life by up to 60%. Ultimately, runtime varies from 1 to 4 nights, 8 to more than 24 hours, depending on the setup, usage and battery pack.

USB outlets proliferation

One option in some countries is found in the recent proliferation of the now ubiquitous USB outlet. At airports, public transport, public libraries, shopping malls and other places it is increasingly common to find public USB outlets. And a lot of the smaller battery power banks can be charged with USB. With the relatively low charging power, it takes a long time, but charging a phone or perhaps a laptop is a possibility.

In the future, advances in adapting the higher Power Delivery standards by these outlets can improve the utility of this infrastructure. Regardless, for charging larger battery power banks regularly, USB looks an impractical option.

EVs chargers to the rescue?

With the introduction of electric vehicle another recent trend in many countries is the development of infrastructure that provides electricity to charge batteries as a service. A potential unintended side effect is that this technically opens up the possibility of charging larger portable battery banks.

However, it doesn’t appear that this is possible at present for technical reasons. It will surely need some kind of converter to provide for example household AC power or an (unlikely) adaptation of powerbanks themselves.

Public outlets

So, until (if ever) that converter and connector challenge is solved, for those without routine access to household electricity, the hunt is on for publicly accessible and powered standard outlets.

They are rare and usually not intended for use by the public. While for example water fountains or public toilets can be found in some places, public electricity outlets seem pretty much non-existent. Where they are discovered it appears they are accessible and usable almost by accident or lack of consideration. Consequently, their existence is often kept hush-hush to avoid them being shut off or made inaccessible.

Irena was told about these 2 outlets by other nomads and gratefully plugs in twice a week to charge her CPAP battery pack. She keeps its location and utility a well guarded secret: a source of electricity that makes it possible for her to sleep.