SBS Lab members Wangda Zuo, Leah Marucci, and Nathan Kurtz traveled to Makassar, Indonesia for a week-long field study as part of the Net Zero Carbon Community (NZCC) project. The team quickly learned that the project is having major snowball effects within the communities. Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels were installed in four locations across the city to allow the communities to reduce energy usage for their fish farms. In Indonesia, the utility grid is almost 80% comprised of fossil fuels, so reducing utility usage can significantly reduce carbon emissions. Additionally, from the energy savings, the communities can reduce their spending which they are immediately putting back into expanding to more fish tanks, and hydroponic systems.
This project has been going on for 6 months and all four installations across 3 sites are fully up and running with online monitoring that can be integrated with the city command center. Over these 6 months our tUS-Indonesian team comprising of Universitas Gadjah Madah (UGM), Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) and the City of Makassar has successfully selected sites and procured, installed, and commissioned all equipment. We are deeply thankful for the long-lasting collaborations with UGM and ITB. We are also greatly thankful for the generous support from the U.S. Department of State (DoS), National Science Foundation (NSF), City of Makassar, and Penn State College of Engineering.
Additional news posts can be found on the project webpage and Prof. Zuo’s LinkedIn post 1 and 2.
