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PV Awareness in Parakou

2017

Benin

The local electricity grid in Benin is unstable and far from ubiquitous, meaning that many people do not have access to electricity or have to make do with expensive, polluting generators. A sustainable, environmentally friendly alternative is a PV system: with the energy of the sun, people can meet their energy needs independently of the grid. However, purchasing a PV system individually as a whole is often too expensive for people in the villages.

The main objective of this project is to develop an example of a PV installation together with the local population, in order to make the advantages of this new technology tangible. In concrete terms, a village will be provided with a lighting network and an attempt will be made to install a PV installation in a workshop. A financial plan will be drawn up to ensure that the community itself can cover the maintenance costs of the installed installation. The project is mainly socio-economic in nature. After all, the intention is for the installation to serve as a source of inspiration for further initiatives supported by the population in the field of sustainable energy supply. By focusing strongly on knowledge transfer and cooperation, it is hoped that the installation will remain operational for a long time and will be adopted by other villages, with the help of microfinancing.

Students
Fien Vanden Hautte
Timon Evenblij
Coach
Jan Devriese
Technology manager
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