Rural Peru Looks to Solar Solutions For Connectivity

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The Peruvian government needed to reduce the gap in access to telecommunication services in rural areas. Taking into account the remote settings of villages outside of major metro markets, they decided solar power was the only feasible means of support for the project. Financed by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Peru, CIME Comercial S.A. was hired to design and install a standalone photovoltaic (PV) battery-based, solar-powered solution for the Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) network. VSAT is a two-way satellite ground station with a dish antenna.

All-in-all, eight systems were used to deliver power to the sites that included one TriStar 60 solar controller, three TriStar 60 MPPT solar controllers, two Relay Drivers, one Remote Meter and one MeterHub, all components from Morningstar, an international supplier of controllers and inverters. To keep them out of the harsh Peruvian elements, the components were all enclosed in a shelter along with batteries and solar modules,

“The Morningstar controllers were selected because they are tropicalized and allow modularity during installation and for their ease to integrate into the customer’s ethernet network for monitoring,” said Hugo Rojas Espinoza, a Solar Energy Engineer.  

The controllers had to meet stringent US FCC Class B specifications, offering low noise design with no cooling fans required and reliability under extreme temperature and environment conditions. Morningstar has deployed similar applications to repeater stations, base transmission stations (BTS), two-way radio, telephone exchanges, rural telephony, VSATs and satellite earth stations.

The government said they hope the increased connectivity will have an impact on the daily lives of Peruvians by improving their ability to speak to relatives, acquire supplies or arrange transportation, improve farming efficiency along with medical and emergency response times. To view the full case study click here.

June 20, 2019

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