Tip,.

If you use googletalk you won't miss eachother online. If you need an invite, contact me.

Gtalk is a bit like the pc versus mac issue. It simply works upon registration ;-)

Dear all,
You are right, we need first to know how many panels will be required so that we can contact as many places as possible to get it at the fairest price.Again we have specialist in the village who instal the solar panels at a cheaper charge.But i will have to find out how much they can charge throught the instalation proceess.

Jonathan, thanks for working on the picture i a ploaded on line surely idid it with alotb of difficult as there was no network in cyber i do browse.

Lyn good links as well lets all keep it up with that spirit.

Steve

There very easy tool to spice up pictures. Just download it and start playing.

No design experience needed ;-)
http://picasa.google.com/

All,

I usually concentrate on PM things as you know but I am a little concerned on the solar panels issue. (I fear we may be putting the cart before the horse here.)

Has anyone sat down and done a quick requirements analysis? We need to establish the power required for lighting and any computer needs. As well as any domestics - kettle? microwave? etc? Will these be used?

We need to establish what the max load is likely to be, the storage required to support that demand and develop a circuit design to meet the school's needs?
Do we have an electrical engineer in the team?
The components are fairly basic and the circuit probably goes along the lines of solar panels, DC breaker,battery charge controller, batteries, voltmeter, inverter, (perhaps smoothing), AC breaker, busbars and then the school circuit. For lighting only, using energy saving bulbs rated at 7w or 10w the demand would be fairly low. Given the long daylight sunshine hours they could be powered by solar. I haven't done the calcs but it seems viable.

I am not so sure about things when we get to the higher power demand things such as motor driven devices, freezers, vacuums, heaters of any sort, air conditioning, etc. I do not think they will be easily viable without something approaching an ex-submarine battery bank to power them. But I look forward to being corrected!

Geeta,

Do you get any (for example) lighting power requirements from any of your design tools?
Or do you know how many lights are intended to go in the school? From that someone should be able to crunch some numbers.

Ron.

Excellent, Ron, with regard to the solar you covered everything except the battery box and the grid tie!

And, yes very much to your cart and horse observation. Geeta said he is working on some CAD, so maybe we will be seeing some mechanicals.

It certainly would be better to spell out the requirements first, but then we would need to lure an EE with UNDP experience and I am unsure if C is up to such fluttering.

On the other hand, Steve says there is someone local that can do wiring, which is a very good thing. Help to keep us in the real world.

Steve, is there anyone with knowledge of making cinder block?

Speaking of cart and horse requirements, and at the risk of evoking the Wrath of Chrissie, it might be wise to consider what other uses might be made of the Matopeni Preparatory School, e.g., neighborhood center, culture center, etc. Also, if the students were to learn something from something other than books, what might that be and will it mean a greater energy need? What sort of juice does a shop need, Ron?

By the way, kudos to some excellent water links from Lynley!

Do they make those ubiquitous in Africa zinc roof panels with a plastic coating to keep them shiny? A challenge to Rainwater Harvesting is air pollution. In other words, you want to capture the rain when the roof is clean while avoiding as much contamination of the water supply as possible.

Talking underground tanks has me ruminating about geothermal, an oft overlooked renewable energy source.

Ben was spot on, I opened the document with Open Office writer, copied the photo to the clipboard, then used The Gimp and then Picasa for the photo editing.

By the way, Stephen, I noted that you did an excellent job in photographing all the faces with such a variation in lighting.

Hi all,

Yes, I do agree, technically, solar power was not in our project plan. When we were discussing it before we thought that maybe it would be best to do it on the second phase when the school got expanded BUT if it is felt that their is a need for it sooner rather than later (especially from an electrical point of view - my dads a spark so i have a very small backing in this!) then we should consider it. It means a few changes to the project plan, but it's for the greater good, I say let's go for it.

Geeta: from an architect point of view: in your opinion, would solar power be best fitted now or later?

Stephen: In your opinion do you think the school needs power right away??

Anyone with electrical experience: what are YOUR views?????

Jonathan: I smiled when i saw that bit about my wrath - I'm a pussy cat you know! :lol: Seriously, though you do bring up a good point. The school, as you can see from the plans, has a big multifunction hall. As well as school activities, I'm sure it could be lent out during the weekends / evenings for other things: community meetings, school homework time, community activities etc. Stephen what's hte view of hte Boston Self Help Group? Does this fit in with your groups plans?

Chrissie :-)

Hi Ron!
I am still working on 3d. And structure part is under discussion with Structure engineer. About the requirement of lighting part I will see. I can give lighting requirements in rooms. For whole electrical system installation (which includes wires, piping, switches, control boards and so on ) we need to discuss with electrical engineer. This will totally depend on how much electricity we are going to use and what for. This will increase total cost. Requirement of lighting will also depend on which shift we use our building maximum. If we plan to use school in multiple shifts then we need lighting system in whole building otherwise it will depend on how much space we use when we need lights in rooms.

Hi chrissie!

Regarding the solar panels. From the architecture point of view if we plan to have solar panels its better now. Other point is Nairobi lies in equatorial plane (1Degree and 3 min. from Equator). Since sunlight is almost perpendicular to the earth plane that means we receive maximum solar energy . So earlier is better.

Soo happy to see the progress of our school.
Still we all should be careful about our goal. I agree with Ron our approach should not be like Cart before Horse!!!
Best Regards
Geeta

Following up on a prior suggestion by Manuel about participation, it might be cool if the 3D (three dimensional drawing) could be brought into Google Sketch Up. (It can import *.dxf, *.dwg or *.3ds)

I was looking through the wiki and saw mention of land purchase for the school. A cool thing about Sketch Up is that it is integrated with Google Earth, so that the school building model could be positioned into the actual satellite map.

The other very cool thing about Google Sketch Up and Google Earth is that there are free versions. So, there is the absence of a hurdle for the cost of CAD software.

Another cool thing is that the model can be exported to 3D warehouse and others can download the model, so there is a great opportunity for collaboration between Ron, Geeta and Stephen in various parts of the world, which is getting smaller as you read this.

:)

Dear jonathan
I can upload 3d in dxf or dwg. This sounds great. Its always good to have global platform like google.
i will try to finish 3d as soon as structure is finalised.
Dear chrissie!
Is there any structure engineer joined our group?
Please inform
Regards
geeta

Geeta,

If you can give me the number of lights required for the school (by room or area ideally) I will do the calculations for the power demand. I do not have the architectual knowledge to know what level of light is needed. If you can provide a link between light level to light produced by a standard bulb that would be great. If not I can work on a common sense basis of say the equivalent light of a standard (240v) lamp of say 75w and factoring that up to fill a classroom. Then converting that to low energy lamps. That will give us a power demand. Once we have that we can start looking at solar panel output and storage, and get an idea of the costs.

Obviously it makes more sense if any wiring, panel, mountings for solar panels, are designed in from the start. Retro-fitting anything after build is the most expensive way of doing things so we should try and avoid that.

The alternative strategy could be 'fitted for but not with' so we make provision structurally and put power cables in but do not buy the panel and batteries in this 'phase'.

All we need to do now is ask the Design Authority for a decision - Chrissie, Stephen.......

Ron.

The point in discussion is more techenical and i have less to contribute but am with you in everyhing you are doing

wish you the best.

Thank you Ron for conversion factor. I just wanted to know the frontage and orientation of the plot. Sorry i missed bit of conversation because something burnt in my kitchen.
regards
geeta

O.K., Ron, have at it.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=d00448332d160dab533dd...

And, Geeta, I must apologize for what I did to your lovely plans. Graphics are a real challenge for me.

Hi Jonathan Thats no problem at all. Dont stress your self I will post similar kind of one block 3d model very soon. I was waiting for structure design to finalise but it seems it will take time. I was worried if structure engineer wants some major changes in design then our model will change a bit so But no problem. We will see that later.
dear neighbours!!
I wonder what is the material for windows? Are we going to use glass for window panels or wooden panels or metal railings????
Please suggest me which is convinient.
I prefer glass but i dont know the availability of glass in our village.
Best Regards
Geeta