Micro-Grid Academy Learning Field Trip
MGA LEARNING FIELD TRIP
The Ethiopian Women in Energy Association hosted the first learning field trip for the 21st Edition of the Micro-Grid Academy training. The new online session, which focused on solar mini-grids, was held between the 25th of January and the 3rd of February 2022. The training was delivered online via video lectures for six days. This MGA training session drew 120 energy professionals from various African countries. Ethiopia had 19 participants, making it one of the countries with the most training participants.
The Micro-Grid Academy (MGA) is a vocational capacity building platform led by RES4Africa Foundation, aiming at creating a skilled and conscious workforce to deploy decentralized renewable energy solutions within and beyond the East-Africa region. The MGA has the goal to provide theoretical and practical technical skills to up to 200 people per year among communities’ ranging from technicians, project managers, developers, engineers, and academic students.
Since the pandemic, the MGA practical field trips were only accessible for trainees in Kenya. Other countries’ participants were unable to receive practical training. However, for this edition of MGA, practical training was planned for two additional countries.
Since March 2021, Ethiopian Women in Energy (EWiEn) and Renewable Energy Solutions for Africa Foundation (RES4Africa) have collaborated to support the empowerment and participation of women and young people in the continent’s clean energy sector. Based on this conviction, the two organizations have collaborated on variety of programs. When the 21st edition of the MGA training began, EWiEn proposed to host a practical learning field trip for Ethiopian trainees in collaboration with the RES4Africa, and they accepted the proposal to co-organize the field trip for the 21st edition of Micro-Grid Acadamy.
The field trip was planned to take on February 04 and 05 to Don Bosco TVET college and Koftu solar PV mini-grid site respectively.
Donbosco TVET college was the destination for the first day of the learning field trip. The Donbosco staff greeted us with a warm welcome. The practical training began with a brief presentation on solar PV systems by the institution’s instructors. Following the presentation, the trainees proceeded to the college lab, where a series of exercises were planned for the trainees. The first exercise was to perform a PV system connection and measure different parameters. The trainees were divided into groups to complete the exercises. After completing the connection trainees went outside to record the measurements.
Moreover, the instructors gave a visit to the solar system in the institution.
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The second day of the field trip was to Koftu solar PV 200KW mini-grid site. The Project site is Koftu, Oromia State, located 40km southwest of the Capital City, Addis Ababa. The project was built as a Model project by the
support of South Korea and was implemented by EEU.
During the visit, Mr. Ebsa, EEU Beza Mekonen, and Mr. explained the design, construction, and operation of the mini-grid site. The trainers divided the participants into groups and showed each component of the solar mini-grid site. They have also illustrated the system’s distribution and controller.
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This field was made possible with the support of DonBosco and Ethiopian Electric Utility. Therefore, we'd like to express our gratitude to both organizations for their assistance in making the visit a success. Moreover we would like to thank Don Bosco and EEU staff for their assistance during the field visit.
