the Apeironian

Diabugu school solar power upgrade project

Update #1: project technical information

I am coordinating a solar power upgrade project for the Senior Secondary school here in Diabugu. The school has an array of solar panels used for pumping water, but once the tanks are full, the panels sit unused. This project aims to harvest the unused portion of energy from the panels, store it in batteries, and use it to power small-scale computer operations in the administrative building for official work, student and teacher training, and computer maintenance. Currently, these tasks are being performed under the power of either a small gasoline or a large diesel generator, both of which are expensive and unsustainable to run.

The people of Diabugu, and the students and staff of the Senior School are asking for donations to fund equipment purchases for this project. I have submitted a Peace Corps Partnership Program Grant Proposal to facilitate this process. If you are interested in donating, you may do so here (click this link to go to the project donation page).

Here is a 15 minute video I put together showing the environment, and some of the staff and students (and me losing my hat). Read on after the video for more information.

You may download an MP4 (h.264) of the video here.

Here is the executive summary taken from the application. You will also find this summary on the Peace Corps project donation page.

Diabugu Senior Secondary School has approximately 1 kilowatt of solar power for their water pump system, which is substantially underutilized (the water system doesn’t need all that power). The school has a large number of viable computers, but no consistent power. By co-utilizing the solar panels for both water pumping and battery bank charging to power a small number of computers, the existing infrastructure can be efficiently leveraged to provide consistent training to teachers, students, and community members. Benefits of consistent power for computers includes training on basic and advanced computer operation for students, teachers, and administrators, hardware and software maintenance for lab computers, local completion of mandatory digital office and administration office work, and long-term, consistent computer exposure. Technically, this project will consist of a charge-controlled battery bank and inverter located in the school office building, connected in parallel with the existing water pump solar array (about 80 meters away). Primary equipment needed for this project includes wiring to connect the solar and battery systems, a solar charge controller, deep cycle solar batteries, and a sine wave inverter. The installation and setup of the equipment will be performed when possible by school and community members under technical supervision (by Mike Clervi, the Peace Corps volunteer), and with specialist assistance when needed. The two main goals of the project are 1) development of project-centered, goal-oriented mentality in the school and community project leaders. This project will be driven by these local people, with technical and financial support. 2) The installation, and multi-year maintenance and use of a robust photovoltaic/battery/inverter power system for small scale computer use (2-3 simultaneous computers). The system has been designed with battery/inverter capacity ratios to promote long-term health of the system and to discourage excessive battery discharge, which shortens system life.

All project documentation can be viewed here (PDF).
Peace Corps Partnership Program Grant Proposal
Grant Proposal Budget
Grant Proposal Timeline

I plan to update this space with pictures, video, and descriptions of the progress of the project, as well as the final result.

If you have any questions, want to donate but don’t know how, need more information, or just want to chat, please email me or post a comment on this page.