Supply Run Success and Sufferings

Over the past few weeks, the Solar Turbine Group has been occupied with running madly between Lesotho and South Africa, procuring equipment and materials with which we will set up our workshop in Bethel and build our systems.

The group split up and made several trips to Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, where we had a lot of success, but with a lot of suffering.

Our suffering came from several long drives and several days of running around various cities on what sometimes felt like a wild goose chase. It turns out that securing suppliers in unfamiliar cities can be quite difficult. Especially when you are seeking some things that don't seem to exist. Then to add insult to injury, declaring these items through the border always takes at least 2 hours. So when you pull into the border at midnight after an exhausting day, you're still not done!

But at the end of those trips, we did find success in that we managed to source a mill, a lathe, various other shop tools, steel, electronics, reflective material for the troughs, plumbing and fittings for the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), instrumentation, and many consumables like fasteners and such. We also made many promising relationships with potentially long-term suppliers along the way.

Further suffering, however, persists as we are still challenged by finding the right components for the ORC. The right heat exchangers, expanders, and pumps are all eluding us at the moment, but after several days planted in the internet cafe and on the phone, I think we are getting close. (However, if anyone out there knows where to find such components in South Africa, I'm all ears!)

Here are a few pics from our mad dashes....

Success! Machine shop on wheels!

Convoy - all 3 trucks in this photo are heading up the mountain!

Men and their truck....

The dance up the moutain road

So, fist we, and then we....

Success! Mill down, Lathe to go...

Here we go...

And, yeah... This one definitly falls under the Suffering category

Success in Progress: on Lathe on the Mend

A day in the life with the

Solar Turbine Group at BBCDC

Sesotho word of the day: Mokhotsi (friend) or Bakhotsi (friends) oa ka (of mine)

The day starts (for me) at 6:00 with a run. Here are some things I see on the way:

Morning Farmers

Local farmers often sing as the work their fields.

A heavy load

Women from Bethel, the neighboring town Ha Teboho, and even the town on the other side of the river, Mt. Moorosi, come to collect firewood, and cary giant bundles of branches and corn husks back to their homes on their head

Morning Fires

The wood and corn husks collected by the women are used to start the household's morning fire. Sometimes I can even see a thick haze that accumulates above the towns from the smoke from these fires.

Off to School

Kids from neighboring towns must start their walk early in the morning to make it to the Bethel High School and Primary School by the time class starts at 8. Some of them walk for 2 hours one way to school. The kids are very friendly and are always curious about where we are going and where we came from.

Back to Bethel

I return to Bethel at aroun 7 to start our work day at 8.

Crunching the Numbers

Our work so far has been in the project set up and design phase. We spent much of the first month back and forth to Maseru holding meetings, public presentations, and hiring new staff. The second month we spent mostly doing design work (and dealing with our broken-down car, but that is another story). So we holed ourselves up in Bethel and reconsidered our entire system from the parabolic troughs, to the tracking system, to the ORC, to the fluids that we will use.

Our House

As part of the set up phase, we have also been working to recondition and expand an old dormatory at the school which we will live in. We had budgeted some money for accomodations. So we figured why pay rent when we can use that money to renovate a house for us to live in, and turn that money into something lasting for the students at the school. The students are all very excited about the new building that they will get next year, and sometimes help us with the construction.

Amy the Electrician (I mean electrical engineer)

And Amy wired up the whole house!!

BBCDC Students - Bakhotsi oa ka!

We have become good friends with some of the students here. This past week, BBCDC has been hosting a conference, which has been keeping the students and the staff occupied. As part of their training, the students have been cooking, cleaning, and waiting on the conference attendees. Otherwise, the students are normally in classes, and often help us with building the house as part of their carpentry class.

Kids at 5:00

At 5:00, the campus turns into a family setting. The students have returned to their homes, or to their dormitories, and the families that live on campus all relax at the end of the day, and the kids play outside.

Twilight Thunder Showers

The sunsets at about 7, and these days, is quite often accompanied by a sunset thunderstorm. We have seen many spectacular light shows up in the mountains of Lesotho!

The Solar Turbine Group then gathers for dinner at the guest house, where Matt and Amy are staying while our house is being completed. After that, the campus is quite dark. The rest of the group then heads back to their room, and after some reading or whatever, it is lights out.

As you can see, we have been leading a bit of a reclusive life here in Bethel as we have been setting up the project and modeling and designing our systems. But we have now almost completed our first phase of the project which has also included the hiring of our Basotho staff, the re-design of our technology for the first prototype, the acquisition of new equipment for the BBCDC workshop, and the purchase of materials for our first pilot system.

We are on our final materials run, and we will begin construction of our first system with our full staff next week, and we are looking forward to getting our hands dirty.

Bethel and BBCDC

Home Base for the Solar Turbine Group

The Solar Turbine Group is based at the Bethel Business and Community Development Center (BBCDC) in Bethel, Lesotho, a small town South East of the capital, Maseru, deep in the rural mountains.



To get to Bethel from Maseru (one of the main entry points to Lesotho, and also the location of the World Bank office and one of our partners ATS), we travel along paved roads for about 2 ½ hours to a town called Mohale’s Hoek. From Mohale’s Hoek, the paved road continues South East along the Sanqu River. Bethel, however, is on the other side of the river. Therefore, we must cross the river just past Mohale’s Hoek, and continue on the West side of the river on dirt and rock roads to Bethel. The journey on the dirt roads is another bone-jarring 2 ½-hour drive (with absolutely breath-taking views of the mountains of Lesotho, by the way). Alternatively, if we are taking minitaxis from Maseru, we continue along the paved road from Mohale’s Hoek to a town called Mt. Moorosi, which is just across the Sanqu River from Bethel. We then procede by tin boat across the Sanqu.

Sanqu River (from the Bethel Side)

River Crossing at Mount Moorosi

From the River, we hike up and over a town called Ha Teboho, to finally reach Bethel.

Bethel from Ha Teboho

This is a view of Bethel from Ha Teboho. The gray building way off in the distance is the mission at Bethel. BBCDC is in the trees just to the left of the mission, while the town of Bethel is just to the right of the mission.

BBCDC is a post-high school school, where Basotho students learn all sorts of vocational / life skills with a sustainability focus, and the campus itself is a working model of its teachings. The topics taught include:

Solar Energy Technology in Buildings

Pictured above: A small house in BBCDC with
a small PV panel and a solar water heater



Sustainable agriculture (“permaculture”)
and water and irrigation topics

Carpentry

Pictured Above: Ivan Yaholnitsky, a teacher at BBCDC

Other topics tought include: Business, metal working, hospitality, and some others.

BBCDC not only teaches about sustainable practices, but it is a working model, a living workshop of these sustainable practices. This environment, the experience and insight of the founder and teacher at the school, Ivan, and the interaction with the students, staff and their families makes BBCDC a very inspirational place to collaborate and work on solar energy technology for rural areas. We are very lucky to have found such a place!

Site Visits on Independence Day

Sesotho word(s!) of the day: Khotso, Phula, Nala - Peace, Rain, Prosperity

Independence Day

October 4 is independence day in Lesotho. A day usually occupied by attending and feasting on a traditional braai (barbeque) and enjoying plenty of Maluti brew. (Maluti brewery is the biggest brewery in Lesotho, and is named after the Maloti (pronounced maluti) Mountains) This independence day was distinguished from most others as the day that the Government of Lesotho unfirled the new "Peace" flag.



Yup, the Government of Lesotho changed the flag of Lesotho. The previous flag had the three colors of the new flag, but arranged in diagonal stripes, with a shield, a spear, and a traditional weapon crossed together in the upper left-hand corner.

The new flag retains the three colors that symbolize Khotso, Phula, and Nala, but replaces the war symbol with the traditional Basotho Hat. This is the new peace flag. THis flag has been excepted with mixed reviews from the Basotho. Some like it, some don't really care, and some have complaints about the hat. The biggest complaint is that the hat on the flag is black, whereas the hat in real life is light brown - made out of thatches.


Site Visits

On Independence Day, the Solar Turbine Group bowed out of all braais, and went on the road to conduct site visits. We visited all three sites under consideration for the deployment of our pilot systems: the village of Ha Teboho, the clinic at Ha Nohana, and the high school in Bethel.

The village of Ha Teboho is an ideal site - a fairly level ground, a perfectly-sized clearing just adjacent to the gravity-fed water pump that supposedly never runs dry, and an almost unobstructed horizon. Our site visits involved taking measurements, noting the angle of the horizon, measuring the flowrate and temperature of the water available from the tap, and speaking with the chief.

Site and Water Source

Site Assessment in Action

Matt and the Chief

The clinic at Ha Nohana is in desparate need of electricity. The clinic currently has no source of electricity, which forces the doctors to perform emergency procedures that must be addressed at night in the dark, with the assistance of a headlamp and a parafin lamp. As one of the physicians says, this situation is clearly "sub-optimal". This site, however, is a distinctly more challenging site. The ground is uneven, several new buildings are planned for the grounds of the clinic, which would take up most of the open sites, the horizon is blocked to the west by a giant moutain, and the location of the water and electricity load are less than ideally located. So we took measurements of several areas, and will find the best that will work!

Water Source and Clinic

Uneven Ground at Ha Nohana

Mountain Obstructing the Horizon

Bethel high school is more in need of hot water. The school currently has a generator that pumps electricity into its underground grid to power the school buildings. Their electricity usage per day is quite high, as they run over 20 computers pretty much all day long. To meet these needs, the school runs the generator from about 8-4 and again from 6-8 to meet the electricity needs for evening studying, cooking, and cleaning. The school also has dormatories with no hot water. It gets extremely cold in Lesotho in the late fall / winter / early spring months, and the unheated water is often even dangerous to bathe in. To suit these needs, the system we design for this site will produce hot water for the dorms and electricity to reduce the load on the generator, but certainly not displace it. Site prep at the high school will be very straight-forward. The site is level, unobstructed, and has good proximity to both the water source and to the electrical grid into which the system will feed.

Design Sessions

Sesotho word of the day: Phula - rain

The Solar Turbine Group has spent the last few weeks up in the mountains putting out heads together to improve the design of our system. During this time, we were inondated by typical thunderstorms that roll through the country, and sneak up out of no where. It really is true that the weather in the mountains can change in an instant! (even more suddenly than even in michigan or in boston!) According to Tumelo, the Basotho are afraid of the rain -- i can see why: it seems that rain in Lesotho is ALWAYS accompanied by thunder and lighting, and in a mountainous country like Lesotho, with no trees or tall things around, you definitely feel like you are inside the storm!

So, where we left off with the design of our system can be summarized by the following pictures and descriptions.

System Protoype at MIT, August 2006

As shown above, the system is made up of two basic components: an array of 4 parabolic mirrors and the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC).

Parabolic Mirrors

The parabolic mirrors track the sun and focus the sun's energy onto a focal point inside the parabolas. Through the focal point of each parabola runs an absorber pipe that absorbs this concentrated energy. All of the absorber pipes are connected to eachother in series to form the thermal fluid loop. A thermal fluid (this summer we used glycol) travels through the thermal loop and gets hot. The figure above shows one parabola that is turned toward the East to capture the morning sun. The silver wheel at the far end is part of the tracking drive train, the black pipe is the absorber, and the valve at the close end is for draining the thermal fluid loop of its fluid. You can also see the absorber reflected in the mirror, and the strip of light that is focused on the bottom side of the absorber.

Organic Rankine Cycle

After the thermal fluid runs through the thermal fluid loop and is heated up, it enters into a heat exchanger, where it transfers its thermal energy to the working fluid of the ORC. In the ORC, the hot working fluid exits the heat exchanger and enters an expander. The expander spins an alternator (from a car) that charges a deep-cycle battery. The working fluid then exits the expander and goes into a condenser. This summer, we had a two-stage condenser: the first stage was another heat exchanger with a gas-fired fridge, and the second stage was an air-cooled radiator. (In lesotho we will use water to cool the system, so the system will also provide hot water)

ORC

Fridge and Radiator

After the working fluid goes through the condensers, it enters a pump, then returns to the thermal fluid heat exchanger to get heated up again. And around and around we go.

This prototype was built by our group this summer (shown below) in a parking lot at the West end of the athletic fields at MIT. The system is run intermittantly by our team members at MIT as they perform tests on the system.

From Left to Right, Alex, Libby, Perry, Sam, Sorin, Matt, Amy, Simmons Hall

Sesotho word of the day: Joalla – home brew “beer”

It is the beginning of week 3 in Lesotho. So far, we have held numerous meetings in the capitol of Lesotho, Maseru, traveled to Durban, S.A. to import a car from Japan, investigated suppliers and equipment in the Durban area, gone through the first round of importing the car from S.A. to Lesotho, conducted even more meetings, attempted to open a bank account – turns out to be more difficult than expected, and have spent a total of 3 days at “home” in Bethel.

Although all of this work has been important, we are all very antsy to get started on the actual work we are here to do!

We were able to speed up the first round of importing our car into Lesotho this past week, however, to allow the clearing agency to release the car for the weekend. So we were able to spend the entire weekend in the “Phamong” region (the region in which Bethel is located). What a nice change from the city! We spent Saturday on a nice long hike along a ridge line, and we spent Sunday doing work at Bethel.

The hike on Saturday was amazing! (Pics below!) We scrambled up a steep slope to a ridge line, and followed the ridge line along, and came down on the other side. The landscape is severe and beautiful, and even more amazing, is that little villages are nestled into the hillsides way up in the mountains, way outside and above the access of any roads! The people in the mountains are even more happy and friendly than those that we have met so far. In one village that we encountered, the town (about 20 people) was gathered in and around a hut where 3 guys were playing home-made drums and tambourine-type-jinglers and an accordion (the accordion is somehow very popular here in Lesotho – go figure!). We were welcomed with open arms, and joined in the dancing for a while.

Another house in the village was flying a white flag, indicating that joalla was for sale. Basotho like to say that joalla is home-brewed beer, but it is really just fermented oats or something that forms a milky-sour substance. After we all tasted some – some of us more timidly than others – Tumelo negotiated a price for a small bottle of “the good stuff”, which was left mainly to him to take care of later that night.

Leaving Maseru tomorrow to go to Bloemfontein in S.A. to do a supply/pricing run.

As promised, pictures of BBCDC, the solar technology at BBCDC and dongas.....