Evaluation of Strategic Photovoltaic Solar Energy Applications in Developing Cou

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Year One Component a: Review relevant literature. Determine the profile for countries and electric utilities to be selected for measurement. This selection will involve country and utility size, customer profile, economic structure, and geographic reality of the country and utilities. It is envisioned that the targeted countries will be selected however the study phase may indicate other countries or utilities that are better suited to illustrate the findings. Component b: Conduct field studies. This will involve (i) conducting electrical measurements at selected points in the target utilities. Measurements may be taken remotely or on-site, depending upon technical capabilities; (ii) Conduct surveys of end-users in those utilities to determine the customer profiles. Component c: Translate technical results into economic and environmental impact. This phase will examine the results of the measurements and extrapolate these results to estimate utility-wide impacts based upon statistical norms. These extrapolations will then be translated into economic and environmental impacts that indicate the economic losses incurred by the country based upon the findings. The environmental impacts will be extrapolated based upon the surplus generation required to meet the load due to poor power quality. Component d: Projected solutions. This component seeks to postulate that how photovoltaic panels, strategically placed in the distribution system will address the problem by correcting the power factor and at the same time providing energy in to the weakest part of the generation system. This result enhances the value of the PV systems, beyond the simple value of the energy produced, but provides ¿systems¿ benefits as well that have important economic implications for the utility and end-users. Component e: Dissemination of results. This component will envision a technical note, workshops in the target countries to share results of the study, a conference presentation, and a final report. Subsequent Years The project is anticipated to be complete in one year. Should the results indicate that wider measurements would be warranted, additional time may be considered.