The Kampong Thom Orphanage Centre was chosen as the first community showcase and obtained several Solar Home Systems to generate electricity. The Orphanage is located in Kampong Thom Provincial Town along the national road 6 with only 2 km from the provincial town. Kampong Thom is 170 km away from Phnom Penh. Indeed the centre is connected to the provincial electricity grid which provides electricity for the consumption of the whole centre, but unfortunately this electricity grid is not stable and unreliable. Frequently, the centre faces with the cut off of the electricity during evening time when the students need light for their evening class. Another problem the Orphanage has to face with is the high price for electricity that is 0.7 USD/kWh and expected to rise to 0.75 USD/kWh.

The idea at the Kampong Thom Orphanage Centre was to introduce and implement an innovative and sustainable source of energy - Solar Energy combined with the necessity of a self-sustaining supply of electricity. In June 2008 the REEPRO project, the German Embassy in Cambodia and the German-Speaking Catholic Community Singapore jointly funded 4 Solar Home Systems. The Solar Home Systems are composed of 4 Sharp 175 Wp solar panel, one Victron Inverter, 12 Battery 420Ah/2V and one Phocos Charge Controller each. The investment costs were about 10,712 USD per SHS, all together 42,846 USD.

Orphanage is not a typical community but a settlement with an electricity problem which is exemplarily for Cambodia. The Orphanage is connected to the electricity grid put the quality and stability is very low. The local energy service company charges 0,45 USD/kWh. In the evening, when the students want to learn and the teachers want to offer further education courses the needed electricity is mostly not available.

To overcome this problem, the German-speaking Catholic Community St. Elisabeth in Singapore, already supporting this orphanage in different ways, developed a 3 step concept (summary of the project can be found here):

1. Short term:  Using a special environmental educational concept: Train the trainer, conduct workshops with the children/students in Singapore and in Cambodia
2. Medium term: First installations of solar plants at the orphanage together with the students to enable them for further installations and maintenance
3. Long term: Extending the project in collaboration with larger institutions to ensure future activities and professional support

The goal is to electrify the 11 student houses and 1 office with photo voltaic bases island systems. Currently we can afford to install 2-3 houses.

So the Orphanage in Kampong Thom has been selected as show case community for REEPRO project. With support of the German Embassy of Cambodia and the German-Speaking Catholic Community Singapore 4 Solar Home Systems (SHS) has been constructed at the Kampong Thom Orphanage Centre in June 2008. Each solar home system generator got a peak power of 0.7 kWp and can produce up to 2,000 Wh daily. Each of these 4 SHS serve one of the houses at the Orphanage and enable to get electricity for light in the evening hours, e.g. for evening class, or to run tv and fan.

We still look for equipment and financial donations to equip all the 12 buildings with PV systems. For more details please contact gemeinde@dt-katholiken.sg  or reepro@dgs.de or or see the donation flyer.

On SHS Installation and Operation and Maintenance a full day Level 1 course was held at the Kampong Thom Orphanage on 21st to 22nd of June 2008.

The participants got introductions of procedure of the solar home system installation. Moreover they istalled 4 SHS Systems on 4 houses and worked on house survey, e.g. data collection regarding location, energy consumption, electricity installation and energy price. Every participant got the REEPRO Training Manual and a complete overview of PV Systems for operation and maintenance.

Videos were made for the installation of SHS activities as movie documentation.

Please watch the videos.

Showcase documentation you can download here.

The 4 Solar Home Systems at the Kampong Thom Orphanage Centre are in operation for 8 months now. They serve different houses at the Orphanage and provide electricity for light in the evening hours, e.g. for evening class, or to run tv and fan. With a total output of 1,701 kWh, equivalent to 212.64 kWh/month the systems are in full operation and lead to savings in height of 92.19 USD/month. All together savings add up to 1,106.24 USD. Even if the system does not reach the expected energy amount of 262 kWh/month, because of less electricity consumption at the Orphanage, in the end it is a big success to the orphans and to everybody who’s connected to the project in any way.

First trainings and workshops about renewable energies, especially solar energy, were held at the Kampong Thom Orphanage Centre in 2007. The installation of the Solar Home Systems was combined with a REEPRO Level 1 Training on 21/22^th June, 2008. Since that time several trainings and workshops were held at the Orphanage, e.g. REEPRO Level 3 on Sep. 19^th 2008 and REEPRO Level 2 on May 7/8^th 2009 and some more training are planed in future. The installed Solar Home Systems enable trainings with practical exercises on installation, operation and maintenance, hence the systems are very important to support REEPRO trainings to instruct and practice new trainer, technicians and stakeholders.