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The document details an industrial visit by mechanical engineering students to solar power plants in Nasho and Rwamagana, highlighting the importance of real-world exposure in professional education. The Nasho plant, with a capacity of 3.3 MW, utilizes 10,500 solar panels and features various components such as inverters and a control room, while the Rwamagana plant is an 8.5 MW facility with 28,360 panels. The visit provided students with practical insights into solar energy concepts, operational methodologies, and maintenance practices.

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Lana Gibson
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11 views

Nasho_Power_

The document details an industrial visit by mechanical engineering students to solar power plants in Nasho and Rwamagana, highlighting the importance of real-world exposure in professional education. The Nasho plant, with a capacity of 3.3 MW, utilizes 10,500 solar panels and features various components such as inverters and a control room, while the Rwamagana plant is an 8.5 MW facility with 28,360 panels. The visit provided students with practical insights into solar energy concepts, operational methodologies, and maintenance practices.

Uploaded by

Lana Gibson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

SOLAR POWER PLANT VISIT

Industrial visit plays an important role for the students going professional courses like engineering
management, it is necessary to showcase all real working environments of the equipment, machinery,
operational methodology and every other thing that students will come across in field

Department of mechanical engineering planned a visit at solar power plant installed at Nasho and
rwamagana, the visit was two days from

1. Nasho solar power plant


1.0 Introduction
A brief introduction about power plant and its working principles was explained to the students, we
visited solar panel yard along with plant engineer where we explained all principles, maintenance and
components of plant, we visited transformer room, and control room, in control room we saw various
control panels, and also how control actions of solar power plant is done

1.1 Background
Nasho Solar (3.3 MW) power plant. The project was established and commissioned in 2017 to 3-
megawatt solar energy to power-up the irrigation system and the surplus is used to light up homes in
the area. The project was funded by the Howard G Buffett Foundation in collaboration with the Ministry
of Agriculture; the plant has total panels equal to 10500 panels with 315W per panel and battery
storage capacity of 2.5MWh for storing electricity produced so that can be used during night or rainy
period

The purpose of this project was to to be used in irrigation system of much sun in this regions and much
demand of water for irrigation

Figure 1: NASHO solar power plant


1.2 Main components of solar power plant
The components of Nasho power plant are the following

 Solar panels
 Inverter
 Backup system
 Battery storage
 Transformer
 Solar tracking system
 Control room

1.2.1 Solar panels


A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells
are made of materials that generate electrons when exposed to light. The electrons flow through a circuit
and produce direct current (DC) electricity, which can be used to power various devices or be stored in
batteries

Solar panels are usually arranged in groups called arrays or systems.

Nasho power plant has 10500 solar panels arranged in series and parallel with 315W per panel

Figure 2: Solar panels

1.2.2 Inverter
A solar inverter or photovoltaic (PV) inverter is a type of power inverter which converts the variable
direct current (DC) output of a photovoltaic solar panel into a utility frequency alternating current (AC)
that can be fed into a commercial electrical grid or used by a local, off-grid electrical network. It is a
critical balance of system (BOS)–component in a photovoltaic system, allowing the use of ordinary AC-
powered equipment

There are 125 inverters which generate 400AC, 3 phase current and 25KW per inverter

1.2.3. Sun tracking system


A sun tracking system use a device called solar tracker that follows the sun as it moves across the sky,
this is used to obtain maximum sun’s radiation when solar panels are coupled with solar tracker
1.2.4 Control room
In control room, all operations of whole plant can be monitored or controlled through remote systems
whenever there is a problem it can be detected and restored

1.3 important recorded information


2. Rwamagana solar power plant

2.1 Introduction
Rwamagana Solar Power Station is an 8.5MW solar power plant in Rwanda, the fourth-largest
economy in the East African Community, located near Agahozo Sharlom Youth Village

Leading the development was the Norwegian solar company Scatec Solar and Gigawatt Global, a
solar developer from the Netherlands. The solar tracking system is handled by Ideematec, a
German based provider of high performance solar tracking systems.

According to a statement issued by Gigawatt Global, the firm that set up the plant after a power
purchase agreement with the government, the plant will be unveiled by the Ministry of
Infrastructure and the Chief of Staff of the US government’s Overseas Private Investment
Corporation, John Morton with life span of 25 years

It has 28360 panels, 2127 tracker post, tracking system

2.2 Main components


The components of power plant are the following

 Solar panels
 Inverter
 Battery storage
 Transformers
 Solar tracking system
 Control room

2.3 important recorded information

3. Maintenance of solar power plant


Maintenance of solar power plant is done by solar developer, this ensures equipment life is maximized,
and incentives are perfectly aligned with both the parties.
Regular maintenance activities done are

 Cleaning: to remove a layer of dusk ,panels are simply washed by water


 Defect checking: a visual inspection of the modules is done periodically to look for possible
defects such as cracks,chips,de-lamination,water leaks and if the any obvious defects are found,
their location is noted down in the control system can be monitored and if cause module to
perform lower than rated value, they should be replaced
 Structure stability: solar module mounting frames are examined to make certain that frames
and modules are firmly secured
 Wiring and connections: wiring installations are regularly checked for any cracks, breaks or
deterioration in insulation

4. Conclusion
This visit was very wonderful and interesting, we got real feel of working environment of a solar power
plant and a chance to transfer theoretical knowledge to practical implication

Each student visited to each section of power plant like solar panel, invertor unit, transformer unit, and
grid connection, now they are able to understand the concepts of solar energy, working principles of
photovoltaic cell, conversion of DC to AC by using invertor unit, step up of voltage transformer unit and
distribution of energy by grid connection

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