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Shiyala Village Solar Electrification Project: 2014 Upgrade

Corkhill, C, Jones, G, Roberts, R, Rogers, Daniel, Stubbs, Alex, Tarrant, Kieron and Thomas, Lee ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4602-5102 2014. Shiyala Village Solar Electrification Project: 2014 Upgrade. [Project Report].

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Abstract

In September 2014, a team from Cardiff School of Engineering visited Zambia to upgrade the solar power supply in Shiyala Village, Chongwe District. The team was composed of Dr Dan Rogers and Mr Lee Thomas, both staff members within the School, and Mr Chris Corkill, Mr Gwilym Jones, Mr Rhys Roberts, Mr Alex Stubbs, and Mr Kieron Tarrant, all undergraduate students of Engineering at Cardiff University. The original solar power supply was designed and installed in 2012 by Dr Dan Rogers and Mr Lee Thomas, with the purpose of supplying electricity to a computer classroom. This was done in partnership with the charity Mothers of Africa, who aim to improve maternal and infant mortality rates in Sub-Saharan Africa through medical education, in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals. In 2013, the electrical provision was extended to provide 230 volt AC power to the surrounding buildings in Shiyala, including the Health Post, the house of the local Nurse, and the ABESU (Women's Housing Co-operative) admin building. The work was carried out by Dr Dan Rogers and Mr Jon Stevens, a PhD student in the Institute of Energy. `Blackouts' were reported in early 2014 by Ms Stella Phiri, the ABESU Housing Coordinator. A visit in April 2014 by Mr Jon Stevens and Mr Gwilym Jones confirmed that these had been occurring due to an imbalance between the amount of electricity generated by the solar panels, and the energy demand from lights and sockets. This led to the design of a larger power system, and its installation in September 2014 (again in partnership with Mothers of Africa) is the subject of this report. The key features of the upgrade are the 12 polycrystalline solar modules of 280 Watts peak each, and the 8 deep-cycle lead-acid batteries of 220Ah each. The panels have been mounted on an aluminium frame, which sits on a concrete plinth to the North of the ABESU admin building.

Item Type: Monograph (Project Report)
Date Type: Completion
Status: Unpublished
Schools: Engineering
Subjects: T Technology > T Technology (General)
Funders: Mothers of Africa, Cardiff School of Engineering
Last Modified: 23 Oct 2022 13:05
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/109611

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