Climate change needs real solutions and the contribution of each one of us. Current stocks remain weak.
by Eng. Camilo Botero*
As I have been commenting in several of my articles, Climate Change is a reality and has reached an irreversible situation in my opinion; what we must do is avoid the collapse of the environment, radically changing our habits of consumption of fossil fuels, mainly, and minimizing the use of plastic, in addition to planting trees, vegetables, legumes, taking care of water currents, etc; that is, to minimize our carbon footprint. Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si, beautifully and clearly states that we must take care of the Common Home, but it did not have the impact I expected from that encyclical.
Since 2005, when I gave my first conference on Climate Change, which was attended by only 5 people, I have insisted on the subject and even when the situation worsens and our political fools and greedy leaders, do nothing about it, as has been evidenced in the last COP conferences (of the United Nations, on climate change), after COP 21 in Paris, where an important agreement was signed, endorsed by most of the countries of the planet that filled me with hope, which was already totally frustrated.
In my opinion, that meeting became absurdly useless and ridiculous and they should close that monument to bureaucracy, neglect and ineffectiveness. Fortunately, young people are reacting, especially in Europe, against this status quo and I love how the little girl Greta Thumberg, blurts out these truths in their face, even in the UN and tells them that they do absolutely nothing to correct this serious crisis.
I am not exempt from responsibility in this issue of climate change, as an engineer specialized in Thermal Engineering: "I have burned everything that is allowed to burn", in engines, turbines, boilers, thermal plants, cogeneration systems, furnaces, industrial processes, etc., using ridiculously inefficient cycles, of the order of a third or less of the calorific value of the fuel or less.
In class I say tragicomically, regarding energy conversion cycles that "it's like eating a banana; a third is consumed and the other two thirds are thrown on the floor so that someone falls and is an accident and not content with that we throw the shell on the floor so that someone else gets an accident and the garbage is hindered. " Present and future generations are reproaching us and will do so more intensely, this stultification in relation to the conversion of energy, for having based it for centuries on hydrocarbons.
I installed a photovoltaic system
My leitmotiv today are my grandchildren and I will do everything possible so that Climate Change affects them as little as possible; Titanic task because the damage is of such proportion that what I can do is a drop in the ocean, however, I will do my part.
Consequently with that I decided to install in my house-office a photovoltaic system, to which if I make the return on the traditional investment, it would not be considered, but for the leitmotiv of the well-being of my grandchildren and if there was a cost for the carbon footprint that we all left and they charged us; I think it has a return on investment, not financial, more than justified.
Below I attach the technical details of the project, prepared by the Electronic Engineer, Andrés Martínez, whom I met on the occasion of a degree thesis direction and who motivated me to do this project that is already in execution:
"The average monthly electricity consumption of the building is 420 kWh, with a peak of 580 kWh. The building has an electrical service provided by the electricity company EMCALI, therefore, it is feasible to use a Photovoltaic design Connected to the Grid (Battery-Free System). With Law 1715 of 2014 of Colombia: By means of which, the integration of Renewable Energies into the National Electric System is regulated, which allows you to be a small-scale self-generator and send the surpluses to the grid (Small-scale self-generation will allow a user to produce electrical energy basically to meet their own needs and the size of their generation facility must be less than 1,000 kW " Two Groups: Those with a capacity of less than 100kW and those between 100kW and 1000kW" – Resolution 281 of 2015).
The photovoltaic system is of type "Connected to the Electricity Grid – On Grid" of 2.31 kW to supply on average between 40% - 55% of the monthly electricity consumption, through the technology of "Micro Inverters" Enphase "IQ7PLUS-72-2-US" of 290W. The Micro Inverter is internationally certified UL mainly with UL 1741 (Standard for inverters, converters, controllers, and interconnection system equipment for use with distributed energy resources).
The analysis of solar radiation was carried out by means of the advanced solar design software Helioscope, where it was obtained that the average monthly generation value during the year would be 235 kWh, taking into account the losses due to shadows, reflection, dirt, temperature, inverter, wiring (See Figure 2).
Figure 1. Design System Connected to the Grid of 2.31 kW, 6 Panels Trina Solar 385W and 6 Micro Inverters Enphase IQ7+.
Figure 2. Monthly Production of the System.
In the study of shadows, the highest percentage is due to shadows of the trees adjacent to the system, for this reason, Trina Solar Solar Panels, Monocrystalline Half Cell (144 Cells) were chosen to have better efficiencies in the generation of energy, having maximum efficiencies of 19.7%3.
Figure 3. System Losses.
The Photovoltaic system is approved by EMCALI for its installation, where they take into account the "Capacity Indicator" and "Deliverable Energy Indicator", which were optimal for the installation4.
The Photovoltaic system will have the Declaration of Compliance with the Technical Regulation of Electrical Installations - RETIE, required by EMCALI for installations below 100 kW for its correct commissioning".
In a recent documentary by the Deutche Welle DW, in Spanish, they presented solutions of this type at the level of small towns of 2,500 inhabitants or less, which generate PV, wind and geothermal energy, up to 5 times more than they consume and that already have networks that commercialize among themselves and with the main networks, these surpluses.
If we put our minds to it, we could do the same in Latin America and specifically in Colombia, and we would become independent from politicized and inefficient public entities for the generation and distribution of energy.
* Camilo Botero is the current Secretary of the Federation of Ibero-American Associations of Air Conditioning and Refrigeration - FAIAR; he was president of ACAIRE and is president of Camilo Botero Ingenieros Consultores Ltda. He has worked as a teacher in several Colombian universities, guilds and currently in ACAIRE in diploma courses of air conditioning projects, energy efficiency in air conditioning and refrigeration, cogeneration and trigeneration, applied psychometrics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and turbomachinery. ([email protected]).
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