As the post below explains, last week Jacinda & Zeph joined me on a day & night in the field. I (Matt) really enjoyed showing them the in's and out's of SharedSolar...and now, because of Jacinda's pictures, I get to share the details with you!
Our first stop of the day was Ruhiira where I needed to check in on a SharedSolar installation. This is our first site and has been operational for a few months. The picture below shows the "shed" where the power system's electronics are kept (in the background, behind the little girl and her sibling).
The MVP (Millennium Villages Project) has also started to install an extensive piped water system in the area (I'm not involved in this project, but it sure is interesting). Here's a photo of the water tower in Ruhiira (see the metal tank behind the "Ruhiira Project Field Office."
Our next stop was Nyaktunda. This is a market center about 30 minutes away where we are in the process of installing 5 SharedSolar systems. Here is our "shed" near the market. We stopped by so I could meet with our field tech (Innocent is his name) to train a local shop keeper as a "vendor" to sell electricity to households who are attached to the system.
Here you see Innocent with the "vendor" training him on how to use the software on the tablet we've developed for selling electricity.
The team in New York designed a wonderful piece of software; you can see it here on the tablet.
Next we walked down to the other end of Nyaktunda and visited a school that is connected to a new SharedSolar installation. We were commissioning the system and it was the first day back at school for the kids after a break, so everyone was excited.
You can see the PV modules (solar panels) on the roof of the school in the background.
The school is "mixed parents" which you may think means they are especially supportive of inter-racial marriages, but it actually means that the school is for both boys and girls (mixed) and private (parents pay).
Here's a photo of the "control room" (same as the "shed" above, but in this case the electronics are housed in a room in the school). You can see Innocent, the batteries in the back, the inverter/charge-controller on the floor, some circuit breakers on the wall in the back, and on the wall near by are the power meters that we developed at Columbia.
As it grew dark we all got more an more excited to "turn on the lights." Here are some more pictures of the kids with panels in the back.
The sun went down an the lights came on! This is one of my favorite pictures of the blue sky at dusk with the school building and lights starting to peak through the windows.
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