A local in Zimbabwe, Hardwork Marange, helps lower the solar well pump into the ground
In the United State and many other developed countries all buildings are governed by building codes. From the plumbing to the electrical everything has to be cleared and signed off on as being up to the state and federal codes.
When you break the realm of the developed countries you begin to lose all of those rules and regulations. But along with losing the codes you also lose the availability of modern technology that assists in the installation and monitoring of solar products.
From what I have seen people’s experience with solar power is related to their friends and family trying to live green, so they add some solar panels to their house. Then maybe they are free from the regular power grid or maybe they are in what is a grid tied system, where they still receive regular power and sell back to the grid when they have excess solar power.
But when you go outside of the “green living” concept there is the “need living” reality. This is where you will see the solar systems being installed in the developing countries, like Mexico and along the US-Mexico border.
Personally I have never installed a rural system on the US-Mexico border but I have installed a system in a rural town in Zimbabwe, Africa.
In a rural setting such as I was in you don’t measure your tools in horsepower but in man power. When you are ready to put a solar well pump into the ground you lower it in by hand, if you made a mistake you have to pull it out by hand, there is no other option.
The art of crafting solar panel brackets from the scrap yard. (photo by Joshua Schaa)
When the time comes to set the solar panels on the roof you don’t swing around a fork lift you get 5 guys spread out on the ladder, the ground and the roof to get the panels up.
Much like rural Mexico and along the US border in Zimbabwe if the solar system was not installed the only way to get the water would be to hand pull it out in buckets, and to have lights at night is to stock up on candles sand matches.
Having helped install system in the US using lifts and prebuilt mounting brackets it was quite an experience to have to start from scratch.
When working in the rural environment there comes delays that can take hours and even up to days, simple things like you run out of the right size bolts for fastening the solar panels down and you have to wait until the next trip to town, which might be a week away.
From what I saw in Zimbabwe and I have heard of working out in the rural locations of ranches and Forest Service water pumps along the border you have whatever you brought with you.
The luxuries of winches and electricity just don’t exist on location and to bring that with you means hours more of work or it is just impossible.
When solar contractors or solar living people think about actual using solar because it is a necessity and there is no other viable alternative it makes the job quite different.
