TITLE:
Construction of a Small Scale Laboratory for Solar Collectors and Solar Cells in a Developing Country
AUTHORS:
Gentile Niko, Davidsson Henrik, Bernardo Ricardo, Gomes Joao, Gruffman Christian, Chea Luis, Mumba Chabu, Karlsson Björn
KEYWORDS:
solar thermal; solar hybrid; small-scale laboratory; scientific research; developing country; Mozambique
JOURNAL NAME:
Engineering,
Vol.5 No.1B,
January
15,
2013
ABSTRACT: In the field of renewable energy, self-provided research in developing countries is barely present, but most welcomed. The creation of know-how and self-development of technologies should reduce the dependence on industrialized countries for both materials and knowledge. This work presents technological and social issues related to the construction of a low budget solar laboratory in Mozambique. The goal is to demonstrate that scientific level research can be carried out in developing countries by using affordable solutions without sacrificing quality of the results. For this investigation, a solar laboratory was built in 2011 at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane of Maputo. The laboratory enables measurementsto evaluate solarthermal andphotovoltaic-thermalhybrid collectors.Thanks to theflexibility of the system,students and teaching staff canadd/remove equipment and develop customised local research programs. In addition, a course on the principles of solar energy and collector simulation for local students was taught. The needed data acquisition devices usually used in Europe were compared with cheaper and easy-maintenance ones. Calibration and estimation of the uncertainty were successfully performed. Approximately 9% of inaccuracy in the measurement was introduced by the cheaper equipment, but the investment cost was reduced by more than 90%. Other issues, results and future recommendations are shown.