Knowing the amount of sunshine that can be expected at a specific location is an essential factor in designing a solar power station.
However, there are no publicly available data on solar irradiation in PNG, apart from some very rough computer simulations for a very first estimate. This is insufficient for our needs.
We have built a small matchbox-sized micro-computer device to measure and register solar irradiation levels more precisely. These devices are (of course) entirely solar-powered and shall be placed at candidate locations to measure the sunshine levels every 5 minutes over many months. This will give us a very detailed measurement series as a basis for designing the solar power station. Only if the expected energy production is designed well to match the expected demand on the campus, we can design a cost-effective solution. Oversizing a power station will become unnecessarily expensive and undersizing it may create a bottleneck in energy delivery. There is a “sweet spot” between both extremes and it is very beneficial to find this optimum value.