Solar Roof for the Dining Hall of the Trinity Academy
The Trinity Academy in Boma Ng’Ombe in Tanzania is a Primary School that strives to operate sustainably. We reached another milestone of this journey in September this year. A new roof for the dining hall of the school was constructed which is covered by 20 solar panels, leading to an installed solar power of 10 kW. The construction of the roof and the light weight walls, which allow an optimum ventilation, was done by local craftsmen under the supervision of Mr. Ndossi, the director of Trinity Academy. The roof also allows rainwater capture to reduce the amount of public groundwater or salty well water tob e used at the school. The dining hall was equipped with new tables and benches that allow all kids to sit down and have lunch together. The ceiling of the kitchen storage room was also renovated to give space for the electricial equipment, like inverter and batteries. In September, our German TeoG Team came to Tanzania to help with the installation of the solar system. The panels are installed on three sites of the roof and feed power into a 10 kWh battery. The electricity supplies the dormitories for the 60 boarding students, the classrooms, the outer lights, the water pump of the well, the administration office and the kitchen itself, where we also installed a new electrical stove. This stove is used for hot water and tea and decreases the amount of firewood used in the kitchen. At this point, we did not connect the workshop of the school, because some of the older electrical tools, like the welding machine, might damage the system due to high peak demands. Also, we found out that we should double up the battery capacity in the near future, since the electricity use during the night is higher than expected. This means that still a bit of electricity needs to be provided by the local electricity grid, which fails regularly. Another follow up project could be the extension of the electical stoves in the kitchen to further limit smoke and dust caused by the wood-fired stoves, which goes hand in hand with the construction of a biogas system at Trinity Academy. Overall, we can say that the project was implemented very sucessfully, providing sustainable electricity for more than 200 kids at the school. We thank the entire team, sponsors and supporters that made this great project possible and hope to continue our work with Trinity in the upcoming years.Text: Franzi Enzmann