SOLARAWARDS2011 WINNERS
PANA-PANA, NGO is responsible for the initial sensitiveness surveys to find users, the creation of the local lighting committees together with the TECNOSOL installers around the area, and the later management of payments from the beneficiaries. Two of their specialized technicians will be responsible for maintaining the systems. Before starting the installations, they carry out surveys to evaluate the payment capacities of the possible users and to prove the longevity and profitability of such projects in order to encourage further industry investment in rural areas. The results show limited creditworthiness and a certain level of debts and arrears. The 5 USD, which they can pay each month (current expense on radio batteries, candles and kerosene for burning is around 7 USD per month). The end user has the possibility of making just 2 payments per year coinciding with income from crop sales. ISOFOTON provides experience in implementing a project of this kind as it has installed several hundred systems around the world but it also provides financial resources to cover delays in payments (common in these projects) and initial disbursements to cover the project, trips to the area to prepare the offer and meet fellow team members, meetings, etc.
TECNOSOL provides the consortium with its knowledge of the country as well as the entire capacity of its company, warehouses, workforce and office material. TECNOSOL will become the logistic and bureaucratic centre of the project during the Installation phase, however, once all the systems are installed, the consortium office at WASPAM will also start operating, although the neuralgic centre will still be run by TECNOSOL from its office in Managua. As well as this, TECNOSOL has also provided its installation staff, nearly all of whom have over 5 years’ experience in solar installations.
Operation experience: After the first 6 months of the installation, when we should have detected all the equipment with manufacturing faults or breakage during transport (regulators 0.9 %, modules 0.05 %, batteries 1%, lamps 1.5%), we consider the working life of the equipment to be as follows: Modules: 20 years (assuring 80 % of their nominal power by the end of the 20 years and that they will continue to work) and therefore spare parts will not be considered. Regulators: Annual breakage rate 6.5 %, therefore, we will have to change all the regulators during the 15 years the system will be in operation.
We consider a working life of 6 years per battery; therefore, we will change them twice in the 15 years. The battery is deep cycle with a daily design discharge depth of 15 %. The lamps must be changed by the user. The breakage rate we have calculated is 100% of the ballasts every 5 years, and a tube replacement every 2.5 years. The rest of the material does not need to be replaced, unless there is a natural disaster, like in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch destroyed around 21000 homes, without actually reaching Nicaragua. The average is one natural disaster every 10 years; other examples are Hurricane Fifi, September 1974 or Hurricane Joan, October 1988, as we have already
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www.solar-pv-management.com I Issue IX 2011
mentioned the system must be assured for 15 years. From the beginning, we focus in the standardization of the electric works, i.e. to fully charge the battery before commissioning the system, to use clips every 30 cm to avoid catenary on the cables, to avoid the wires crossing and to study the location of the generator to avoid shadows.
All these issues together with a sheet which reflects the technical characteristics of each installation should facilitate the Operation and maintenance and help to enlarge the life time of all the components. It is pointed out the installation period is very short, six month for the hole project, due to bidding demands; therefore, we must work at a rate of 12 installations per day, 6 days a week. Also the equipment transport to the communities should be done in a short period, due to the main river is first dry, and after it is not transit able due to the swelling from the rains. For this purpose, a group was formed with 12 very experienced installers (4 of which speak Miskito), an administrative manager (who also speaks Miskito) and a cook.
Conclusions: The success or failure of this project is based on several factors which we will attempt to list below, however, as a start to these conclusions, we would like to clarify the following point: the special nature of this project should be the objective used to design all the rural electrification projects. The sustainability of these systems is the key to the real motivation for this kind of projects, which is none other than the improvement of the living conditions of the users of the photovoltaic system and not the increase in the statistics of the population with access to electricity.
Note from the Judges: The solar industry began with a vision to provide renewable cheaper energy to a broader section of the global population and this vision has not being lost amongst the necessary profit and loss financial structure that is part of any industry. One area that has remained an ideal of the overall industry is micro-electrification projects, especially in rural areas bereft of a consistent reliable energy
source.There are a range of issues facing rural electrification via a solar method including climactic changes, energy storage, voltage fluctuations and most notably, a lack of sunlight at night. Such projects require innovative thinking that crosses renewable energy resources and solutions may be made up of a number of industrial inputs.
Research will be key in discovering configurations that provide more energy options to rural areas and the winner of this award has been involved in a 15 year project that required international companies to sign up to a sustainable agreement for the 15 years in order to participate. The goal was to assess the needs of rural electrification projects over time.A key aspect of this project and a current task for the sector is to convince industry that rural projects can have a profitable outcome ensuring it is no longer seen as some form of charity driving more companies towards the idea. The company has been responsible for supplying the equipment and the technical management of the installations.
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