By Chris Boyer
Imagine being the medical center that is responsible for the health of 500,000 people in South Sudan. Now realize that you have no electricity; you cannot store medicine because it spoils in the heat; you deliver babies in the dark of night; and there is sandy dust everywhere that blows in from the windows left open for light and ventilation. That’s the daily operation of the medical clinic in Aweng – that is, until our solar team arrived
Members of Rial Baai Project, a non-profit based in Grand Prarie, arrived to install a Sundanzer refrigerator that is DC powered by a small solar panel. Mike Ewert from the Houston Chapter of TXSES provided the generous funding for the refrigerator and solar equipment. We found the medical clinic already had two solar systems installed, but neither of them worked. We installed the refrigerator and supporting solar equipment to the glee of the clinic staff. Then we checked the non-working systems and found that one had a blown fuse and the other had batteries that were never wired properly – easy fixes. Our trip completely transformed the operational capability of the clinic.
Solar is much needed and desired in developing areas such as South Sudan. Electricity is currently provided by small, noisy, inefficient generators belching out toxic fumes. Fuel sells for $12 to $15 per gallon in the cities and up to $25 per gallon in the villages. At these prices, a solar power system offers payback in less than a year. Even though the country is “poor”, the economy is growing at 75% per year and billions are spent on electricity. Unfortunately, the right solar equipment is hard to find, and the equipment in the markets appears to be quality control rejects.
Foreign humanitarian organizations have flown in installers and solar equipment for some of the schools and hospitals, but on this trip I estimated about two-thirds of that equipment is not working. One study I read estimated that 75% of the solar equipment installed stops working after a year. No one locally has been trained or knows how to maintain or fix solar equipment.
So, there are two problems preventing wide spread use of solar in South Sudan. The first is the lack of skill in how to select and install solar equipment. The second is the availability of quality equipment in the country. Rial Baai, which translates as “bringing light to the community” is addressing both of those issues. Its goal is to develop a solar industry in South Sudan through education, a professional solar society, and provide access to quality equipment at low prices.
In June of 2013, Rial Baai held the inaugural solar training class in the city of Kuajok. Twenty students attended a week long course on the fundamentals of solar equipment and practiced assembling several types of systems from 10W to 800W. The curriculum included life skills training such as setting goals, keeping a positive attitude, and problem solving methods. In the week after the class, the top students participated in field installations on different types of roofs and sizes.
Installing solar in Africa requires a different approach than in the US. Customers buy the smallest system possible and power as much as they can for as long as they can every day. Therefore, the DC and AC loads must have low voltage shut off limits to prevent over discharging the battery. The battery sizing capacity should be limited to about 5Wh battery per W of solar panels so that the batteries can be recharged each day from a fully discharged state (oversizing the battery capacity will prevent the batteries from ever getting charged and quickly reduce their life).
Protection and building codes are non-existent. Grounding is nearly unheard of and never done right, so we kept the DC voltage low and limited the length and exposure of wires. Replacement fuses are unavailable, so if one does blow, the whole system is rendered useless. We used circuit breakers, or a short section of wire that can burn up and be replaced in the event of a fault. There are no standards in place for building construction, such as beam spacing or sizing, so we had to measure everything and be very extra careful on roofs. Never assume anything. Most roofs have no allowance for live loads. One must also work with a limited availability of construction materials and hand tools. Improvise with safety in mind.
For those developing renewable businesses in emerging regions like South Sudan, there are several technologies needed:
- Low cost batteries that are not damaged by full discharges on a daily cycle (size and weight is not an issue) such as those being developed by Aquion
- Generator-tied inverters that allow solar panels to feed AC into the system with a generator. This will reduce fuel consumption, with fewer batteries or without having to use batteries at all.
- Simple solar kits that offer flexible, easy to install equipment; such as the NPower systems offered by Northern Tool in the US.
Despite the hazards and difficulties of installing solar in developing economies, these countries are embracing solar energy as their top energy solution, unlike the United States, with its roots in fossil fuels and nuclear. It’s exciting to see the transformation that solar power brings.
Chris Boyer is the Chairman of the TXSES Board of Directors and an Advanced Power Systems Developer, with a focus on renewable energy at Amber Waves Energy