Recently, Digo Bikas Institute installed a Solar Nano Grid in Dhapchung, a rural village in Sindhupalchok District of Nepal. The Nano Grid now provides basic electricity supply to the villagers for lighting and mobile phone charging.
Solar Nano Grid is a low cost innovative technology in which individual houses within a densely settled cluster of less than 50 households are connected to a main generation (solar photovoltaic array) and storage facility (batteries) via cables. The Solar Nano Grid addresses the problem of limited functionality associated with independent Solar Home System. The Nano Grid system is also expandable as per the energy need of the community.
Dhapchung can be reached after walking for five hours from the nearest roadway at present. The village was severely affected by the earthquake on 25 April 2015. The villagers still reside on the temporary shelters. The ethnic Tamang village with 41 households relies on subsistence agriculture and remittance from wage labor in India for the livelihood.
Before the earthquake, the village was powered by a 3kw micro hydro which is now completely destroyed. Digo Bikas Institute and Gham Power Nepal Pvt. Ltd. installed the Solar Nano Grid as the system is easy to install and operate within few days of feasibility assessment. Upon the availability of funds, Digo Bikas Institute plans to repair the damaged micro hydro and provide the village with hybrid power from Solar Nano Grid and the micro hydro. This will enable the isolated village to use energy for productive end use enterprises like grain grinding mill, running electrical appliances in community center, etc.
Digo Bikas Institute is thankful to Helambu Education and Livelihood Program (HELP) for providing logistical support for the installation of the system.
Digo Bikas Institute aims to provide policy and technical advice to scale up the Solar Nano Grid across Nepal. If you want to learn more about the technology or support our initiative, write to us at info@digobikas.org
Photographs of Nano Grid Installation in Dhapchung are uploaded in Digo Bikas Institute’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/digobikasinstitute