: Microgrid Project Experience :
Thori Community Microgrid
Sikaribas is a village in the Thori village municipality of Parsa district in Madhes pradesh, on the border of Parsa National Park and Chitwan National Park. The village is surrounded by dense forest, and is known as the "home of hunters". To get to the village from the Birgunj-Thori postal road, you need to go through about 7 kilometers of forest. The village has around 62 households and 287 people.
The village is also the route that wild elephants take from Parsa districts, towards Thori and Ayodyapuri VDC, and along the Chure range.
There is energy demand for basic household electricity and public services. The site has 62 households, agro mill, saw mill, school and health post. The public demand is for solar street lights, school, health post and temples.
Under the auspices of Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC), Sunshine Energy and Peak Power delivered this micro-grid to a remote agrarian community in Thori which is South-East of Kathmandu and consider part of the Tarai region.
- Victron 3 Phase Stack with additonal Inverter.
- 25 kw of DC coupled solar PV
- 165 kWhr of deep cycle battery storage
- 62 house-holds with pre-paid smart meters
- Transmission lines 2.7 km
- 53 Public area Light Poles
Gutu Community Microgrid
Peak Power designed and built this 100 kW micro-grid in collaboration with ADB, AEPC and Motherland Energy Group. This microgrid provides power to more than 1000 people, there was no electrical system in this village. This was an extensive project requiring months of planning and execution, we built the power house building and erected more than 119 power poles with 7.8 km’s of transmission lines before we even delivered solar modules, inverters and batteries to the site.
Around a year after the completion of this system we were asking to do an extension to add another 50kw of AC coupled PV, due to our design foresigh tthe expansion was very straight forward. The system was also extended to some other house-holds that were not connected. This was a real eye-opening and satifying experience being a part of this project.
- SMA multi-cluster system
- 100kw of AC coupled solar PV
- 768 kWhr of deep cycle battery storage
- 278 house-holds with pre-paid smart meters
- Transmission lines 5.5km
Thawang Community Microgrid
Peak Power designed and built this 150 kW micro-grid as the delivery partner for Suryodaya Urja Pvt. Ltd who in collaboration with ADB, AEPC funded and led this project.
The project site is located at Thabang Rural Municipality Ward No-1&2, Thabang village, Rolpa District at an elevation of 2,036 meters. Thawang, a historic Magar village in Rolpa, is the epicentre of Maoist insurgency. The clustered settlement of around 376 houses served as the shelter for Maoist leaders and combatants. It's located on the banks of the Thabang River, and covers 191.07 square kilometers.
This microgrid feeds two distinct villages and provides energy for 30 Street lamps, local Hospital, local Metal works business, local Milling and grinding business and two Schools.
- SMA multi-cluster system
- 150kw of AC coupled solar PV
- 960 kWhr of deep cycle battery storage
- 11kV transmission line 8kms
- 376 house-holds with pre-paid smart meters
Simigoan Microgrid
Simigoan is a remote community with no road access, it takes around 2 hours of trekking up hill to reach this village which is on the trekking route to Gaurishankar mountain in the Nepal Himalayas. This project was a partnership between Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Limited and Peak Power to establish another power supply (solar and battery) and extended the transmission lines.
This was a very challenging project that required coordination of materials delivery which was hand-carried over several months by the local village people from the access road to the final installation location. It was unbelievable to see the effort the local people put in humping kilometers of transmission wire, 6-meter poles, cabling, inverters, batteries, tools, solar modules and installation materials.
The system was synchronized to the existing micro-hydro system which was extremely challenging with the condition of the turbine and the voltage controller but we did manage to get everything to sync up. We also installed extensive grounding systems, direct strike lightning protection and surge protection as the site is prone to lighting strike.
This project was really enjoyable, we all started to naturally improve our health and fitness living away from the city, eating the local organic food, drinking the pure water and breathing the clean air, this village is really amazing.
- 12 KVA 3 phase inverter stack Victron Quattro inverters
- 10kW DC coupled PV
- 800 AH of deep cycle battery storage.
Olane Microgrid
This community in Olane VDC-6 & 8, Olane Panchthar District is fairly remote and had no grid connection, the village has no use of electrical appliances at all. This project was executed under JV arrangement with Sunshine energy and Peak Power under the SWM program at Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC).
This system is consider off-grid as there is no grid or generator input, however the system can accept either of those inputs in the future if the commitee wished to extend the system. This system is built entirely around the Victron Energy Quattro platofrm with swithc board designed and built by Peak Power.
