| Popis: |
The University of Alabama (UA) Engineers Without Borders™ student chapter has been working for four years with several remote villages in the Amazon Basin in Peru. During the 2006 evaluation project students interviewed villagers and conducted testing to determine the most pressing infrastructure needs: safe water, septic systems, lighting, and communications. In the third year, 2008, a student team began to address the lighting problem by working with the villagers to install photovoltaic solar panels in Amazonian villages. These test installations have been monitored by in-country NGO project collaborators and will continue to be field-evaluated. Meanwhile identical solar units were evaluated in a controlled study at UA during the months of July through September of 2009. The photovoltaic panels were assessed for voltage and current variation with surface and ambient temperature, varying cloud cover and precipitation events. System light outputs were evaluated for luminance. As a whole the systems were also judged based on their performance in on-site operation, maintenance, sustainability and environmental impact. The systems were rated using a comparative weighting and scoring table. Based on the results of the study, two of the systems evaluated were found suitable for large-scale deployment in areas such as the Amazonian region in Peru. Assessing the experience in a post-trip survey, students identified the particular strengths of the program as the development of teaming, communications, and experiential learning skills. |
