Modular Renewable Energy Systems for Refugee Households in Jordan

We are currently in a global refugee crisis, where over 89 million people in the world are forcibly displaced. Especially in Jordan, there are millions of refugees living in shelters which are not meant to last more than 5 years. The current shelters in refugee camps currently draw electricity from the power grid, which is highly unreliable in Jordan and results in severe rationing of the amount of electricity each household has per day. This is where Mawa Modular, a company that is developing modular housing shelters in Jordan, comes in. Through our project with Mawa, our main goal is to propose the design of a solar module that will be modular and improve the energy reliability for shelters in refugee camps. In order to accomplish this, we established a number of engineering requirements, including providing as much power as possible with a $1,000 budget, creating a bracket that can easily mount various types of solar panels, ensuring that our module withstands the expected modes of failure, and recommending a battery option to store energy efficiently. Since the current refugee camps already draw electricity from the grid, our system will be supplementary to the power they currently have and integrate a battery to provide power when the sun is not shining. In order to accomplish our goals, we first explored various mounting methods to attach solar panels onto the roof of Mawa’s current design. We decided on a steel bracket with M10 through bolts that met all of our requirements, and proceeded with various experiments and simulations to ensure the bracket could endure various modes of failure. We did two force loading experiments and a waterproofing test with the leg of the bracket, which proved that it meets our engineering requirements and helped us determine Kwik Seal as the best sealant to water-proof the through holes. In addition, we performed solar simulations to test the actual power generated by various types of solar panels at different conditions and configurations. This analysis gave us quantitative evidence to back up our chosen design and provided accurate readings for the power output we would expect from our solar module in Amman, Jordan. Finally, we did research into various types of batteries and recommended a lead-acid battery in a DC coupled system with an inverter, as well as an MPPT charge controller. All in all, through exploring various mounting methods, performing simulations on how different solar conditions affect power output,