Technik ohne Grenzen e.V.

Micro off-grid Photovoltaic Workshop in Indonesia

About the Project

Background

Indonesia is a fast growing developing country, but today Indonesia still has around 13.000 villages which are not yet electrified because a lot of investment is needed to expand the power grid and also to build new power plants. Even in villages with installed power infrastructure not all people can benefit from it, because a lot of poor people can’t afford the cable connections to their houses or in many cases not able to pay for the electricity bill. Some people are still using kerosene lamps and candles for lighting purposes, which can be dangerous for user’s lungs (by frequent use in closed room). Furthermore, lightings from candles and oil lamps are often not sufficient for some activities at home, so that more problems such as decline of sight at early age can also be caused. A micro off grid Photovoltaic plant is surely the best solution for this problem because it is clean, independent, flexible, and produces free energy.

Solution and Goals

At first we came with the idea of installing micro PV solar home system for every house in one selected (remote) village. But in the end we decided to organize a photovoltaic training for NGOs and entrepreneurs in Indonesia so that they can implement this kind of project by them self. In this occasion we invited NGOs and entrepreneurs that really have an interest on conducting solar energy project in their areas, some of them even already have a PV-program and would like to improve their designing and installing quality. By doing this we could achieved a higher number of installed pv-plant in the future (more than 1 village).

Our main goal in this project is to transfer knowledge to our partner and other NGOs so that lots of PV projects can be implemented in the near future through them independently. In this occasion we are going to give a small Photovoltaic Workshop for the Staffs of Rumah Ilham and also some other NGOs. We will not only be presenting the advantages of renewable energy and the potential of solar power in Indonesia but also train them to design a simple off-grid solar power system. At the end they will also receive a theoretical and practical training on electrical installation of PV-plant and the safety issues. With this knowledge they should be able to design and install PV system for simple appliances such as home lighting, water pump, agricultural machinery and many more.

Result

In total there were 20 participants in our Photovoltaic training. 4 of them are form our partner NGO (Rumah Ilham), 6 are from NGO Rumah Energi, another 6 are from other NGOs, 4 are individual persons (micro entrepreneur / engineer from small companies) and one Intern from Rottenburg University in addition. The participants come from all over Indonesia to Jogjakarta for this workshop and 80 % of all participants have successfully passed the given tests. They should be able to design and install a small scale off-grid PV-plants up to 3 kW peak for small appliances, but this can only be proofed through number and quality of their PV-Projects in the future, that’s why project leader will always stay in contact (within the first year after training) with the participant to encourage and support them on realizing PV-projects in their areas. The participants were very satisfied with the workshop. We even got invitations to hold the same training next year in other cities.