2008-2009

Jared Alvord, April Orleans, Heidi Caldwell, Thomas, Babacar Diop

Introduction

Dominica is a small island nation located in the Eastern Caribbean and is part of the group of islands that make up the Lesser Antilles which is part of the larger West Indies. Dominica is just north of the French island of Martinique and South of Guadeloupe. Dominica is known as the? Nature Island? and famed for its 365 rivers, bright sunshine and Caribbean winds making the island desirable for all types of renewable energies.
        The Wind group worked in the rural village of Grand Fond and was responsible for dong a complete load analysis of the Grand Fond Primary School and completing the installation of a 40 ft. wind measurement tower using NRG equipment.

Main Goals:

-Complete an accurate load analysis of the Grand Fond Primary School
-Install a 40 ft. wind measurement tower using NRG equipment

Load Calculations

Our work at The Grand Fond Elementary School started with a load calculation in order to properly assess the schools needs for the wind turbine that will be installed in the future. The school consists of 6 classrooms, a computer lab, a teacher’s lounge, the principles office, and a library. Students are in the school roughly from 9 am to 2 pm five days a week. The computer lab has been in use during school; however the exact hours of use varies depending on the classes that day. The computer lab is also open to the public after school, so we calculated the maximum possible usage in our calculations assuming that computers would stay on until 8pm when the public could no longer be using the computers. This may seem excessive but it was difficult to determine the exact usage of the computers because it depends on how often people come to use the lab. With our calculations, we determined the maximum KWH usage per month to be 636, and looking at the electric bills from the past 5 years, the actual greatest KWH usage was 498. This load calculation was successful in that we were able to get close to the maximum usage level, we did go over, however that was expected because we assumed the maximum usage of computers and the equipment in the computer room, and included lights that at the time did not have bulbs in place.

One thing should be addressed when the time comes to size the system; the inverter may need to be able to handle turning all of the computers on at once, because it is at start up when the computers are at their surge wattage. We felt that having the children wait patiently to turn each computer on individually is unrealistic, however this problem could be resolved by installing a switch similar to the one at the Grand Fond Preschool, allowing them to use power from the grid to get the computers started, then once they are all going, switch back to the wind turbine.

Tower/Installation

The most challenging part of our project was figuring up how to get the sensors 10 M above the highest point in the vicinity of the Grand Fond School. In the states this task would have taken only a single trip to Lowes, but in Dominica it took a lot of MacGyver like thinking and planning to get the tower designed and erected. In the end we designed a tower made out of two twenty foot metal poles sitting atop a cement pad, held in place with three guide wires.

Our first challenge was figuring out where the tower should be erected. Originally we had been planning on putting the tower on top of the roof, so that the children around the school would not have such an easy time playing on it. However while designing a tower to go on the roof we realized that we did not have the proper materials, nor a proper roof to hold the significant amount of pressure. Our fall back plan was to put the tower on top of a cement pad in the back of the building, and use the overhang of the roof for stability.

After determining where the tower would go we had to figure out how to keep it stable, upright, and removable so that more equipment can be added in the future. We decided that the base needed to be made of cement with bolts sunk into it. This base kept the tower from sinking into the ground, and the bolts gave us a way to attach and detach the tower. To keep the tower stable we used three ½ inch guide wires attached three quarters of the way up the pole. Two of the guide wires were bolted into the roof of the bathroom, and the third was bolted into another cement pad.

Once we had the tower all set up on the ground with the sensors attached, we used the guide wires and lots of muscle power to upright the tower and put it in place. The righting of the tower went smother than any of us would have expected, partially due to some of the innovations that Felix, one of the locals, helped us with. Once the tower was in place and bolted down, we attached the last of the equipment and left it for Jem to program.

Conclusion

After a very hard week of scouting for suitable materials in Roseau’s side streets, handling mobs of picture-happy school children, setting cement in a constant rainforest downpour, and dealing with snapped drill bits and fried power tools, our group was finally able to raise our wind measurement structure to life. The equipment was programmed to send the wind speed and direction data over the local cell network so that we are able to receive and analyze the data here at UVM over a thousand miles away. After reviewing the speeds over the next couple months, UVM and SLIC will be able to determine whether the Grand Fond Primary School should be powered by the trusted Air X wind turbine or the new, experimental yet promising Hummer Dynamo wind turbine from China. Once we are finished receiving the data, the wind sensors will be taken down, and the appropriate wind turbine will be set on the same structure our group designed and constructed. It was a demanding week, and our group had to give up our free day to work, but none of us regret it. The cheers of the school children from below chanting, “Wind mill! Wind mill!” as we lifted the tower to its feet felt better than anything we could have done that day.

In reflection, it is easy to see that after many hurdles, the success of this project was based on our group being able to work together. Each member applied their individual expertise to different phases of the process, and in the end, we are proud to say that we organized, planned, designed, acquired the materials, constructed the tower, and completed this project all with our own 10 hands. It was an incredible experience, one that built in us all real hands on experience in renewable energy systems as well as approaches to international development and project planning. And although the Grand Fond Primary School has to wait a few months before moving away from the grid, we are proud to have done our part in helping the school take a large first step in the right direction.

And of course nothing would have been possible without this group’s project partners and allies:

Ø The Sustainable Living Initiative Centre (SLIC)

Ø Cable & Wireless Dominica

Ø NRG Systems

Ø Jem Winston

Ø Professor Gary Flomenhoft

Ø Steve Addisson

Ø The members of other renewable energy groups that threw some time in

Ø The Mighty Felix

Ø Glen, Javon, Jared, and all the other students at Grand Fond who helped us out.

Ø Grand Fond Primary School

Ø Choooombay

Thanks Dominica!

The Wind Group

Babacar Diop

Community and International Development ‘09

April Orleans

Community and International Development ‘09

Thomas Angeley

Business Administration ‘10

Jared Alvord

Environmental Studies ‘10

Heidi Caldwell

Political Science ‘09