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In late 2003, Sustainable Energy Solutions, INC (SES) was approached by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a Catholic missionary order, to develop a project that would provide photovoltaic-generated electrical power to rural mission stations, schools and hospitals in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). SES accepted the challenge and has been working with the Order in the development of this multi-year project.

Substantial segments of the populations of the developing world live without basic amenities such as electricity, potable water, or access to competent medical care. The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a community of Catholic women religious, whose slogan is “Hearts as wide as the world,” live amongst these poor and seek to elevate them through their ministry. Founded over 200 years ago in Belgium, the Order has grown to become a global organization operating in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and North America.

The communities where the sisters live are often without electricity and SES was tasked with developing viable energy, communications, and water purification systems that would enable the Order to serve the needs of their diverse populations, but be productive in meeting the challenges of a twenty first century organization.

Planning for the project, dubbed “The Power Of The Sun” began in the autumn of 2003, and as of the current period, a prototype system has been built in the United States along with the first installation in Fugar, Edo State, Nigeria atThe Power Of The Sun African Rural Mission Station Electrification Project the Fugar House of Formation where women aspiring to become sisters begin their training. A system is also under construction in the community of Ngidinga in the province of Bas-Congo in the DRC with the next Nigerian system to be located in the community of Enugu in planning.

Eventually over twenty sites will be built. For more details on the technical aspects of this project, read the following.

African Photovoltaic System Description

The African continent is full of resources. That is undeniable. Unfortunately, it has become common for the citizens of many African countries to have electricity available only for few days if not few hours during a days. Those who can afford to buy diesel generators are able to withstand that scarcity of electricity so long as fuel and maintenance staff for those giant machines are available to them. But with such issues added to the rising cost of fuel in the market, people will most likely in the near future turn to the Solar Power which I should recall is another resource the African content can be proud to have for almost a full year in some cases.

Sustainable Energy solutions has put its expertise and experience to help African community to get access to electricity and all the resources it opens up to have uninterruptible power supply available such has purified water using Ultraviolet, a good pumping system, and so on. So far, SES has successfully built and implemented several sites in Africa among which one in Nigeria at Fugar, Edo state another one in Congo at Ngidinga, and is in the process of implementing a third site in the Enugu state in Nigeria.

Benefits

Electricity from the sun brings important benefits to people who live off-grid, without reliable electricity. In Africa, the primary benefit is potable water. Clean water avoids diseases such as cholera, typhoid, bacillary, dysentery, polio, meningitis and hepatitis. Electricity is so powerful in killing pathogens, that our solar plants purify 4,000 gallons of clean water a day. Enough water to keep people healthy.

In addition to clean water, our system can supply light, some refrigeration but also multiple means of communications via a satellite & Internet, e and a state of the art phone communication system, the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology.

Because of its communications ability, this system is monitored and will last for years, which brings the cost of electricity it produces down close to the cost per kilowatt hour available in the USA.


Photovoltaic Application Overview

Sustainable Energy Solutions, Inc.’s stored-energy photovoltaic system provides continuous electrical power as an off-grid application. It’s for use in rural areas where either no electrical power grid exists, or if it does exist, is unreliable.

As mentioned, stored energy feature provides continuous energy for illumination, water pumping and purification, communications, refrigeration, and other general purpose electrical loads.

In the next sections, you will get a technical overview of the African Photovoltaic systems Assemblies. But first of all, here are few basics that will help understand the need of all the assemblies that in whole make our system.

African PV System and Assemblies

1) Photovoltaic Array Assembly

Most of the roofs in Africa are open to the solar irradiation. As a consequence of that, Solar panels are preferably mounted on top of roofs - which we designate as roof-mounted - to give the photovoltaic cells a better exposure to sunlight needed to make conversions of those radiations into useful electricity. Nowadays, Solar cells can absorb nowadays about 25 % of solar radiation

Another advantage of the roof mounted configuration is the possibility to have a good orientation of the solar panels toward the sun. As a matter of fact, Solar power generation depends solely on orientation or angle of inclination which theoretically should be equal to the area's latitude to absorb the maximum amount of energy year-round

2) Battery Energy Storage System

Once the issue of orientation is solved, comes the need of mean of storing the energy collected by the photovoltaics. In fact, generally speaking Solar Electricity is only available during the day under a PV systems (when there is sunlight) where’s the need for a good storage system. A battery – which can be lead acid , a cheaper type of battery, or nickel cadmium which is more efficient while lasting longer - are commonly used for such purpose.

To maximize the lifetime of the battery storage system and maximize its capability, there must be a good charging process with added Maximum Power tracking capability which condition that is satisfied with the use of Charge Controller. Such module will efficiently handle the charging process as much as preventing any overcharge.

3) PV System Configuration

Another purpose of our system is to provide a proper adaptability to the user’s configuration.
The Power coming from the battery is DC (Direct Current), some appliance will work well with DC power while others works only with AC power. For such reason, is added to the system an inverting capability that will be handling the matter of converting the DC power into AC as needed.
Note: Grounding & lightning protection may be required to protect equipments against fault
Still in the area of adaptability, based on availability and reliability of power from the utility (or local electric company), the system can be retrofitted as to provide uninterrupted power supply to the consumer following the following two concepts:

· OFF-Grid System or semi-hybrid: Energy from PV stored in battery, Grid is in the System and used as an auxiliary source of power, Excess Power from PV not resold to the Grid

· ON-GRID or hybrid system: Power not stored, battery available but charged by Grid to provide auxiliary source of power, possibility to sell power to grid during peak hours

Based on our experience, the suggestion would be to build an array that can provide sufficient energy to reduce the user’s dependency on the utility grid.

4) Benefits

Either the system is connected to the Grid or not, some features and protection are added to the overall installation to prevent any damage to equipments that can be due to surges or lightening during our outside of the rainy season.
Another guarantee of our commitment to provide the best services with the most reliable equipments is the added data acquisition system which help monitor consumer’s usage, equipment performance and function with the possibility to provide assistance for troubleshooting, fast detection of fault and, most importantly to provide the customer with tools needed to decide with confidence on any upgrade or set of measure to take based on the users actual daily power profile.

Here is a quick overview of the type of data collected by our Data System & Data Acquisition

· Information on PV Energy production
· Solar irradiation (daily power profile)
· Inverter activity
· Charging and state of battery : measurement of battery’s specific gravity for the purpose of preventing the
battery to Sulfate
· Consumer power usages (daily consumption profile)

Earlier at the beginning of our overview, we mentioned system lifetime. Preventing the battery from sulfating is an important step in increasing its useful life.

In conclusion, our system is designed to answer the client’s specific needs with possibility to get an uninterruptible power supply. The system’s performance is guaranteed with a Data System/Acquisition as an assurance of the system’s reliability.

For more information, please contact our Technical Services.

We need volunteers who can help move this project forward in country sites, help in any way with deliverables to Pilot Sites (some remote and only accessible by air "MAF" that is from the Escarpments of the Kenyan Rift Valley to the heart of Africa: Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan), help with any other way possible (especially resource mobilisation leverage) as I am in a volunteering liaison position for this project partly as a School Applied Field Work (Manchester, NH); and partly with a view of turning into a Social Enterprise and Community Economic Development Initiative to benefit Communities experiencing Decades of Poverty and Neglect. The target Focal points in need are St Mary's Parish, Yambio, Tombura Yambio Diocese, Southern Sudan, The Moon Project, A Midwives Centre, in the Arch Diocese of Gulu, Uganda and North Kinangop Mission Hospital, Naivasha Kenya.

Required immediately a Pro Bono Resource Mobilizer for Technical Development Assistant to help move the Solar Electric Project forward to encompass cross border selection of about 5 sites across borders of East Africa Countries of Kenya and Uganda, etc.

Brief Duties:
Development of "Partnerships In Development" between the South and North.

Write to request for more information

Planning Sustainable Energy East Africa / Internships - Volunteering in East Africa: Send application requesting more information to the following email address <volunteeringea@gmail.com>
<copeacd@yahoo.com>