The project was initiated by a German school participating in the Buddys Program of the German Vodafone foundation.
Through their “Climate Change and Energy Production” project, the students lobbied for their sister school in Bagamoyo, Tanzania and convinced five companies and institutions to contribute money, manpower and products to provide the Tanzanian school with solar power.
As the project gained awareness, the Lutindi Mental Hospital in Tanzania also asked for a helping hand, and the initiative was extended to supply the hospital with solar panels on its rooftop as well.
“We were impressed from the beginning of the project and it was clear to us that we will support this initiative with our high performance solar panels,” said Luc Graré, Senior Vice President Solar Sales and Marketing, REC. “The idea behind this project exactly embodies REC’s vision – that every person benefits from electricity directly from the sun – and we wanted to be a part of it."
The rooftop installation on the school in Bagamoyo uses 18 REC Peak Energy Series solar panels and has a system size of 4.2 kW, while 90 REC Peak Energy Series solar panels make up the 21 kW rooftop installation at the Lutindi Mental Hospital.
At present, only 14 percent of the population in Tanzania has access to electricity, including only two percent of the rural population. To make living conditions even more challenging, the grid in Tanzania isn’t stable and blackouts are a daily occurrence.
In addition, the demand for electricity in Tanzania continues to grow with the economy in the African country. Therefore, the idea behind the project was to generate electricity using the sun.
Because many areas of the world do not have easy and direct access to a grid, as in Tanzania, off-grid solar electricity is a practical solution to meeting electricity needs and was used for both installations. By using off-grid solutions, electricity is partly used directly as it is being generated and partly stored in high quality solar batteries to be consumed during the evening hours.
The planning, coordination and material acquisition of both installations was carried out by Peter Hoenen, Engineer and Product Manager for Stand-alone Power Systems at Wagner & Co Solar Technology. He was on hand for the installations and contributed his experience.
REC and Wagner & Co Solar Technology have been successfully working together for more than four years. In March 2012, Wagner & Co Solar Technology joined the REC Partner Program as a Platinum Partner.
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