Meeting With MoserBaer

Tuesday morning we all ate breakfast at the hotel and met with Nithan to go over the project, his work and some basics of solar power in India, then we loaded the rented car and traveled to the Delhi office of Mosar Baer (which sounds like “Mother Bear” with an Indian accent) and met Suresh, our other local professional mentor. We toured their rooftop solar installation, consisting of a Three Kilowatt Monocrystaline and a Five Killowat Multicrystaline system. We examined and photographed the mechanics of the installation, including mounting and wiring and discussed the benefits of monocrystaline vs multicrystaline arrays and got some basic performance statistics (Multicrystaline arrays are 14-15% efficient and are less expensive than the 16% efficient Monocrystaline Arrays). Then we checked out their battery array and inverter system which consisted of 24 tubular batteries for the 3KW system and two inverters – one for batteries and one for real time conversion. We learned that inverters are not scalable so if we decide to implement the solar panels in stages we will need to buy an inverter that can handle the goal wattage upfront. We then discussed some rules of thumb for solar installation. We now know that we need about 15 square meters of shadow free area for each KW of solar panels oriented south facing at about a 30 degree angle to the horizontal. The team discussed costs and logistics of the project with Krishan Kumar Sharma, one of Musar Baer’s engineers who works in sales and marketing. We essentially have two options for how to proceed with the design work for the project: we can design in parallel with our technical team and the engineers at a local solar vendor each creating a design separately after which we will use our design as a guide when we review their design or we can design in series by getting the design specs for the equipment the local solar vendor has access to, doing the bulk of the design work in Pittsburgh and then making final tweaks in communication with the local vendor to arrive at a final workable solution. We also decided that it is more likely we will work with Advet Energy than Musar Baer since they are more likely to involve us in the design process and develop a more customized solution and since working with smaller, more community based companies is more in keeping with EWB goals. After the meeting we went next door to a local mall to get lunch and then loaded up in Suresh’s car and the rental van for the harrowing journey to Rampur.

--Eva