Place:
Thoman is located in the mountains of Haiti. It houses a health clinic that provides free healthcare to over 4,000 Haitians. The clinic relies on a diesel generator that is powered up for the major part of the night and a couple of hours during the day. This intermittent access to power costs up to —– per month.
Goals:
- Design a micro-grid for the integration of PV, batteries and diesel generator.
- Meet power demand of the Thoman Compound
- Transport and install the microgrid by the end of spring 2016
- Involve the Georgia Tech Community
- Stimulate Interest in Power Engineering
Process:
Presizing-
Load profiles were estimated based upon the appliances, lighting and pumps that are used at the pump. A high and a low load were created and the low load with 24.0 kWh and 2.4kW max was selected for design.
A sketch of the compound was given and roof 2(of the picture below) was chosen for the solar panels based upon its direction and pitch. Building 3B was chosen to house the power electronics and batteries.
Site Visit-
In mid February 2015, a small group of students traveled to the center to check measurements and finalize a plan.
After that visit, the preliminary design had been finalized. Simulations determined that 7.35kW of PV Modules could charge a 1500Ah, 48V battery bank using a 6.8kW Inverter. This Microgrid was determined to be the most economical and reliable option.
Components:
Owing to the contribution of generous sponsors like Schneider Electric, Trojan Batteries, and GTRI, the necessary parts were obtained to realize the plan.
Schneider Electric donated-
- Conext Line Inverter
- Solar Charge Controllers
- Conext Battery Monitor
- Conext Combox
- Automatic Generator Starter
Trojan Batteries donated-
- 16 IND17-6V Batteries
Georgia Tech Research Institute(GTRI) donated-
- 28 PV panels
