The island of Roatán, Honduras is located off the coast of mainland Honduras. It is the largest of the Bay Islands, stretching almost 50 miles long. Roatán’s economy is based mainly on tourism and fishing. People come from all over the world to see the beautiful beaches and coral reefs surrounding the island. However, due to minimal waste-water treatment infrastructure on the island and a reliance on fossil fuel, the aquatic ecosystems are deteriorating, causing concern for the future of Roatán’s economy and environment.
To help improve the island, we worked with POLO’s Water Association in the community of West End as well as the Penn State Chapter of NECA to complete this project. We decided to design and install a solar array to help the West End community. This would allow the community to create clean energy to power their water pumps. Also, the arrays would save the community funding allowing them to reinvest back into the community.
For several years we have worked towards achieving this trip. This trip represents the culmination of hundreds of hours of work for the Students of EWB. While we were in State College we split into three main teams: Electrical, Positioning, and Structure. Electrical needed to model all the electrical connections of the array as well as ensure that electrical flow will occur. Positioning had to look at the location of the array and see the proper angle that would allow the most sunlight to reach the array. Structures had to design the array to be hurricane proof without compromising price or design limits. Each team had to work with the other seeing as they were all so integrated with each other.
Eventually, the planning of the project was completed, and it was time to implement. We flew down fifteen students with two professors to complete this project. The trip lasted six days and the solar array was completed in five
