School Solar Power in Belize: Students Building Solar Power Systems in Schools Central America View Digital Media

Workshop Presentation
James Skon  

This workshop considers our experience in creating and operating an ongoing college student project to build working grid-tie solar power systems for schools in a developing country (Belize). One goal for this project is to teach our college students and our Belizean partners about the concepts, values and utility of solar power. Another is to demonstrate through our activities that volunteer efforts can make a difference in mitigating climate change, as well as serving the needs of students and teachers globally. In addition, we emphasize cultural engagement for our students, many of whom have never visited a developing country. This workshop covers how we made contacts with the government of Belize and developed those relationships, how we procure and pay for the needed materials, how we train and prepare students, how we assure the students and our school collaborators safety, as well other lessons we have learned. Students' construction, creation, and operation of solar power systems, as well as training for safe work on rooftops and with electrical systems. Our team can install a 1-2KWh system in a single day, and can install 5 systems per trip. So far we have installed systems in 21 schools. We have also built a custom monitoring web-based system to view the data on power generation by hour, day, and month. This workshop shares the process involved in creating such an experience. It is our hope that other colleges and universities can learn from our work and replicate such efforts.