Commissioning the Solar MUS (solar power for water pumping) projects

Next week starts with the arrival of Lewis Cameron who is a PhD student from the University of Sheffield and is spending the next three weeks working for iDE.  Lewis will be carrying out research into some of the existing iDE MUS sites (gravity, grid and solar).  It will be interesting working with him over the next few weeks although I’d imagine he will be going straight into the field to collect some data on account of the limited time he has here in Nepal.  As tomorrow is a public holiday we all go out for a few drinks after work followed by dinner at the Roadhouse café.

The next day is Holi, a Hindu festival of Colour!!  I do a little work in the morning time and then head out onto the streets in tee-shirt and shorts.  It is customary to be coloured on this day.  It’s exactly what it sounds like; people throw colourful powder at you.  It is also common for people to throw water balloons and buckets of water from the tops of buildings at you.  Some people don’t like this but I have to say I found it to be nothing but good fun and in the majority of cases people tend to ask your permission as to whether you are ‘playing’ Holi (i.e. willing to get coloured).  It’s a real treat for the kids in particular and you can see them getting ready the days previous, stocking up on water balloons etc!  Although it’s definitely hard to get the colour out of your skin and I spend a good hour later that day in the shower.  Later that evening I go to a BBQ in the guesthouse where I had been staying previous.  All the current and previous guests (now dispersed in different parts of Kathmandu) as well as their friends are invited.  It was a good night and a nice end to Holi. 

I’ve decided to take Nepali classes as I want to have the basics to be polite and courteous when I visit the field.  I find a teacher close to work and Cecilia also decides to join me (she is much better at it than me!).  After our first lesson, I’m able to introduce myself and formally say my name and where I am from.  This is good timing as I find out on Thursday that I will be leaving for the Solar MUS sites the next morning.  The solar panels for three of the projects have been held up at customs at the Indian border for the past number of weeks and so I really had just been waiting for the phone call that they were ready to go.  I was planning on travelling to Kaski (an existing Solar MUS site) tomorrow anyway and so the timing couldn’t have worked out better.

We leave from Sustainable Energy Nepal (SEN) offices in Kathmandu who are the technical partner behind the Solar MUS installation. A team of technicians had left about six days previous to install the necessary equipment (Solar panels, control unit, pump etc) and so everything will be ready when we arrive on site.  It’s a tight schedule as we have a lot of work and ground to cover over the next five days.   I will be travelling with Sagun Pradhan, the company director and a senior member of his technical team Raghav Shrestha.  It’s about a five hour drive to Pokhara, where we pick up Rajman Shrestha a technical officer working for Sappros, a local community based organisation working with Renewable World and iDE on this project.  Its then about another two hour drive to the first of the solar MUS sites in Sirubari located in Syangja district.  By the time we get there it is late and there is little we can do except inspect the installation in the twilight.

The next morning we rise early as we are eager to get started.  We have to wait for the sun to rise first though before we can commission the Solar MUS system.  By 7am after a quick cup of Chiyaa we are ready and we trek up the mountain side to the solar panels.  We commission the system and then wait for the sun to rise further and the solar radiation to increase.  The drive unit which controls the operation of the pump, switches the system on when the radiation level reaches 33% (around 330Watt/m2).   SEN carry out some preliminary tests on the control panel while Rajman inspects the source storage tank.  At around 8.30am there is enough solar radiation for the controller to switch the pump on.  We measure the flow rate at the community tank which is recorded at just less than 1 litre per second which is excellent for this early in the morning.  As the morning progresses we continue to monitor the flow rate which remains steady.  As we have a busy schedule ahead of us we need to move on.  However, just before we leave, one of the community members is keen to show us some of the farm produce he is growing.  He shows us a nursery where he is growing orange saplings for re-sale as well as numerous other vegetates and fruits.  This is exactly the type of sustainable entrepreneurial enthusiasm that Renewable World is looking to attract with these projects and we are all encouraged with his acute business acumen.  The additional water pumped by the Solar MUS system should help further develop these micro-enterprises and generate income within this community.  We finally leave the village but not before the traditional presentation of the ceremonial Tika.  It’s quite a send off by the community and one I will never forget.

We still have a busy day ahead of us as we want to commission one more project before driving to Gulmi ahead of the scheduled next day Bandha.  A Bandha is a protest in Nepal and they are becoming increasingly more frequent with the run up to the elections which are happening at the beginning of next month.  We travel to Lamdanda which is about an hour and half drive from Walling and so is quite remote.  We arrive on a high after the success of the last installation.  However, our excitement is short lived as when we arrive at the Solar MUS site, we quickly learn that a small critical piece to the installation is missing.  Unfortunately the technicians installing the system forgot a small jack sleeve which is used to connect the control panel to the drive unit.  This was so frustrating as it is only a tiny piece to the whole installation but without it there was nothing we could do.  The only thing was to drive back to Walling and hopefully find an electronics shop where we could get a network cable made and would allow us to temporally communicate with the drive.  As we don’t want to get trapped in the Bandha the next day we decide to leave this until the following day and drive to Gulmi arriving around 10pm.  We stay in the village next to the community (about a forty five minute drive).  Everyone is very tired and so we eat and then go straight to bed.  As the Bandha is starting at 5am the next morning we need to get off the main road by this time and hence have a 4.30am start.

We arrive into the community early and therefore have plenty of time before the sun rises to commission the system.  Time for another cup of Chiyaa I reckon!!  As we have ample time we decide to visit the water source as it is particularly interesting for this site.  The water supply at this installation is supplied via a rock face rather than taking it directly from a stream.  Rajman has designed an excellent collection system for the water and is transported to the source storage tank.  The distance between the water source and storage tank is particularly far on this project and through complex terrain making the engineering design work that little bit more difficult.

At 10:00am we are ready to switch the system on after some teething problems with the installation.  The system starts to pump water and we move to the community storage tank to measure the flow rate.  Rajman asks two children to climb into the tank with a bucket so we can measure the flow rate.  I’ll never forget how much fun these kids had jumping around splashing each other in the tank, although, trying to get them to actually do some work was difficult!  The measured flow rate meets expectations and so we trek back down for some lunch.  As a result of the Bandha we cannot move to the next site until 5pm and therefore this affords us the opportunity to be able to spend more time with the community members and learn from their experiences.  A meeting is arranged to discuss the personal views of the community as to how the system should be managed.  We begin by standing up and introducing ourselves which is where my previous Nepali lesson came in very handy indeed!  Although I didn’t understand a lot of what was said during the meeting it was great just to feel involved.  After the meeting it is time to travel back to Lamdanda as we had picked up a network cable on the way through Walling and tested it in Gulmi.  As the distances were too great to do travel at this time we spend the night in Tansen.

The next day we travel the remaining distance to Lamdanda.  The solar system is now able to be commissioned via a network cable and we measure the flow rate at the community tank.  The system does not perform as well as we would have hoped and therefore we start to look at possible causes.  All the pipes are checked and the source tank checked for any leaks.  This process takes a while after which we still get the same flow rate at the community tank.  We break for lunch and discuss other possible causes.  After lunch we move to the community storage tank and the guys start dismantling the pipes but suddenly the decision is made to cut the pipe.  This was a last resort decision as the pipe will have to be repaired but was the only way we could find out for sure whether the issue was at the community storage tank or somewhere else.  A shovel is put straight through the HDPE pipe and water starts spurting.  Thankfully when the flow rate is measured it is correct and therefore we deduce that the issue lies with the pipe feeding the community storage tank.  The water is then switched off so that the pipe can be fixed.  We grab a quick refreshment drink with the community and some more ceremonial Tika and hit the road again to Pokhara.

We spend a night in Pokhara before heading straight onto Kaski the next morning.  Kaski is an existing Solar MUS site and has been operating since December 2012.  It is situated in front of the Annapurna mountain range and has stunning backdrop views of Fish tail.  However, the haze surrounding the valley this morning is particularly thick and therefore we do not get the beautiful view I was hoping for.  The Kaski  Solar MUS site had been underperforming the last while and we would like to run some tests and change some of the parameters on the control unit to see if this improves things.  We make the changes at the control panel and measure the flow rate.  An increase in flow rate is observed above what was expected and therefore we are all delighted along with the community members.  As it’s a long drive back to Kathmandu we don’t hang around too long as has been a busy five days and we are all very tired. 

It has been such an experience these past few days and I am very fortunate to be given the opportunity by Dublin Institute of Technology Foundation and their generous donor to work with Renewable World.  I am also very grateful to Renewable World, particularly the programme manager for South East Asia Nick Virr, iDE, Sappros and Sustainable Energy Nepal for the opportunity to visit these villages and meet with the community members whose lives are being transformed with the installation of the solar MUS projects.

All Fintan's photos are available on our Facebook page.