Kibuye 2018

Today is Sunday.  Team Four (Tom, Wayne, Mike, Darrell, Jonathan, Isaac, Oliver) left for Bujumbura around noon.  Their flight leaves for Brussels at 8:05PM.  That leaves six of us here for one more week to wrap things up.  Over the past couple days we have continued to monitor the operation of the PowerPac and have been compiling O&M manuals and documents.  The PowerPac has been performing flawlessly now that the settings have been fine tuned.  On Friday, the hospital experienced a "new reality"; with the national power grid off all morning, there wasn't even a "blip" on the hospital lights as they performed surgeries and other critical functions. Friday afternoon Collins Muiruri, engineer with Africa Mission Healthcare Foundation (AMHF), traveled to Kibuye from Nairobi, Kenya to look at our PowerPac and to meet with us.  AMHF was a major financial contributor for the installation of this electrical system.  Collins was very impressed and e...

With the construction of the PowerPac, solar field, and associated electrical distribution circuits to the hospital complete, Wayne, Jonathan, and Matt continue to fine tune the operation of the PowerPac.  Their goal is to introduce "real world" conditions to make sure the automatic transfer functions smoothly for each condition mimicked.  The PowerPac has been operating exactly as designed when being used as an "off-grid" system (solar/generator combination).  But when Regedeso power (grid) is introduced into the equation, we are having to work through additional challenges.  The power often falls outside the parameters of "acceptable" power and therefore is disqualified by our protective equipment.  We're hoping to find an acceptable solution that makes Regedeso power a viable, backup option.  Please pray about this. Don, Darrell, Gene, Mike continue to work on a "punch list" of repairs around the hospital.  Oliver, Isaac, and Jimmy conti...

Kibuye residences have been quiet for the past week as all but one family went to the Serge gathering in Mombasa for an annual time of meetings and relaxation. This week, they will return to their homes now powered by a new electrical system.  We're excited for their return and will continue to fine tune the PowerPac performance. Late this afternoon, our technicians heard an alarm in the hospital and investigated it expecting an electrical issue.  They found the oxygen concentrator (provides oxygen to patients in need) shut down from overheat.  Troubleshooting the unit, they found the fan blade had worked loose and wasn't cooling the unit.  After making repairs and purging the system to purify the oxygen again, the unit was back in service.  We are so happy to have extremely skilled electricians with us that can take on additional tasks like this and make repairs unrelated to our scope of work! Team Two - Sunday morning just prior to the dedication of Po...

Sunday was not our typical "day of rest".  The missionaries here have graciously shared all they have with us, even the homes that they live in.  Since the family of the home we were "inhabiting" for the past three weeks is returning this week from Kenya, we rose early and began to transition to a new home.  That meant moving all refrigerator and freezer items, and pantry supplies in addition to personal luggage, etc.  The move went very well with all hands pitching in.  Pray for the family whose home we now "inhabit" as they are in Kenya enrolling their 2nd child at Rift Valley Academy.  The commitment of these parents to the work in country and all the resulting sacrifices involved...  well, it's an emotional time sending your child away to boarding school.   After breakfast, we walked to the PowerPac where we took a team photo using the drone so we could capture components of the PowerPac with the team.  Sorry I couldn't attac...

It is Saturday night here in Burundi.  Tomorrow there will be nine of us who will head for the airport in Bujumbura to begin our trip home.  Tom and Gene and Steph will be updating the blog from that point on, as I am one of those leaving after three weeks here at Kibuye.  It has been a very good trip and with today's testing of the SMA equipment in the PowerPac we are confident that we are leaving a safe, beautiful and WORKING system that has been run through the ringer.  There may be some minor tweaks in the next two weeks, but Matt and Jimmy, who are coming in tomorrow from the States, and Jonathan who is already here, should be able to monitor the system and be ready to make any modifications that may be necessary.  In the testing today, we managed to "crash" the system twice, leading us to some incorrect settings that needed to be changed.  We also were able to communicate with Matt A., back in the USA, and it seems like we have been able to work throu...

Sorry about not posting yesterday but I was a little under the weather.  Felt much better today and was able to assist in some of the testing and configuration of circuits within the PowerPac. The other day we posted photos of the ditch the diggers were working on that unearthed the existing electrical feeder cable connected to the Staff Housing.  The desire was to reroute this cable to the PowerPac, so that it would provide stable power to the houses except when the SMA system would shut off the non-essential circuits due to low batteries.  The cable that was dug up was 840' in length.  The diggers were careful not to cut it when they were digging, but we repaired some nicks in the outer jacket as the wire was redirected up the newly dug trench to the hospital.  There were many, many Burundi workers who worked alongside our own crew to do this. Today we also began to close up wireways and panels, as there won't be any more major circuits pulled from ...

Today was the center of our time here in Burundi.  Today we had the Uganda power grid and the solar power all charging batteries.  At one point the charging was too much and it triggered a reverse voltage event that tripped one of the inverter circuit breakers and the incoming main breaker.  We are glad these things happened while we are here to react.  This is helpful in tweaking the system. Lots of other things are happening.  The Busoma Plant is now powered by the PowerPac. Permanent power is in to the Maintenance Shop. We call this electrical fitting a "Special-Tee" The Burundi diggers are working to unearth the electrical cable leading to the staff residences, so that it can be re-routed directly to the PowerPac wiring.  This will likely take a few more days as there is at least 600' of additional ditch to be dug for this changeover. We also rearranged the wiring inside the old generator building that had powered the h...