Incatema starts installing solar panels within the project to enlarge and rehabilitate l’Azile drinking water supply network (Haiti)

27 July, 2022

Incatema Consulting & Engineering started implementing photovoltaic panels in the drinking water network enlargement project for the town of l’Azile, in Haiti.

It is an autonomous pumping system fed by solar energy, with 32 polycrystalline solar panels, with 72 photovoltaic cells per panel. This type of solar panels offers a high performance even when radiation is low, allowing sustainable energy availability for the entire drinking water network. Thanks to the said autonomy for a direct energy feeding, without cumulating, pumping takes place during all daylight time, increasing energy efficiency.

An efficient and sustainable pumping system, adapted to local climate.

The control panel for the installed solar pumping reduces necessary elements and favours energy saving, used to feed pumps through a reversing device. The facility includes, as explained here, various functions that make it a highly sustainable system. Among said functions, we point out the possibility to follow up the point of maximum power (PMP) of the solar generator, that allows profiting as much as possible from the maximum available power at all times. This system can also react to sudden radiation shifts, avoiding sudden pump stopping and restarting. This way, the control panel has the necessary programming to avoid unnecessary stops and restarts by sunrise or sunset.

The pumping system allows a maximum operating pressure of 1,600 KPa and a maximum feeding pression of 10 bar. It can operate up to a maximum temperature of 50ºC. The designed flow is 39.40 m3 per hour, and the water column height is 16.7 m.

Fernando Díaz, head of Infrastructures department at Incatema, points out the importance of designing infrastructures “adapted to locally available energy resources and climate conditions, as is the case in this project in l’Azile, where solar energy is an illimited costless resource. This is fundamental to guarantee an optimal operation of the drinking water system we are enlarging and rehabilitating in a region severely damaged by the 2010 earthquake”.

Access to quality water for more than 30,000 people.

L’Azile is a Haitian municipality located in Anse-à-Veau district, within Nippes province. Thanks to the drinking water network enlargement carried out by Incatema, more than 30,000 people in the area will have improved access to quality water.

This project with a budget of 1.4 million, financed by the World Bank, contracted by the National Directorate for Water Supply and Sanitation (DINEPA), includes as well rehabilitation of Grande Rivière de Nippes tributary basin.