n136  2044  22 Jun 79
 
BC-SOLAR ADV24 2takes
(FOR RELEASE SUN., JUNE 24)
By EDWIN McDOWELL
c. 1979 N.Y. Times News Service
    SCHUCHULI, Ariz. - This sun-baked village on the sprawling Papago
Indian Reservation is not even listed on the 1979 official state road
map, but its existence is well-known in Washington and in many remote
areas of the globe. For this is the site of the world's first solar
village.
    Lessons learned here on costs and operation have taken on a new
importance with the Carter administration's announcement last week of
a goal to obtain 20 percent of United States energy needs from solar
and other renewable sources by the year 2000. In addition, a growing
number of people are convinced that solar energy's main application
throughout the world may well be in such impoverished villages as
Schuchuli, which have been largely bypassed in the race for economic
and social development.
    The $330,000 project in this dusty village 30 miles north of Mexico
is one of many Department of Energy efforts aimed at letting the sun
do what is normally done with oil. Solar energy's promise is limited
- it will be decades before it can fuel big factories and cities -
but the project here shows how it can already make a dent in
America's demand for imported oil.
    The Papago Tribe requested a solar system several years ago for
Schuchuli, one of 53 villages on the tribe's reservation, to replace
the village's kerosene lamps and the temperamental diesel-powered
water pump, and the Department of Energy agreed to help. Schuchuli
(pronounced Stchew-chew-lick) was considered an ideal solar
laboratory because of its size (almost 100 residents), its location
(of the year's 8,760 hours, this portion of the Sonoran Desert spends
almost 4,000 of them in sunshine) and its limited electrical.
    During daylight hours, when temperatures routinely soar above 100
degrees this time of year, a solar-powered electric motor drives a
pump that delivers as much as 1,100-gallons of water an hour into the
storage tank that looms above the bell tower in the adobe church. All
15 houses in the village, most of them constructed of wood or adobe
brick, are equipped with two 20-watt fluorescent light fixtures. And
each family has access to its own refrigerator in a community room as
well as a communal washing machine and sewing machine.
    ''There have been no unusual problems so far,'' said Dr. Louis
Rosenblum, chief of the solar and electrochemistry division at the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lewis Research Center
in Cleveland, which is monitoring the project. ''The only routine
problem we've had was a burned out light in the control panel that
shut the electrical system down for about a day.''
    The outcome of the experiment here, he said, ''could influence the
direction taken by developing countries to satisfy the pressing
energy needs of their large rural populations,'' which account for an
estimated 50 percent of their total populations.
    The Schuchuli project uses a photovoltaic system to produce
electricity. The sun beats down on panels of solar cells, enclosed
within a 70-by-100-foot wire fence at the edge of the village, that
have the property of converting light into direct current, like that
produced by batteries. The tilt angle of the cell panels is adjusted
each season to take fullest advantage of the sun's rays. Excess
electric energy is stored in a bank of lead acid batteries,
especially designed for solar energy use, until it is needed during
evening hours or on cloudy days. Power is delivered via a
distribution network of poles and overhead lines installed by the
Papago Tribal Utility Authority.
    A power conditioner could be added to the system to make direct
current compatible with the existing American distribution system of
alternating current, but conversion is considered less efficient than
simply using commercially available direct-current switches and
appliance motors.
    (MORE)
    
    
ny-0622 2343edt
***************

n137  2051  22 Jun 79
 
BC-SOLAR ADV24 1stadd
(FOR RELEASE SUN., JUNE 24)
NYT SCHUCHULI: appliance motors.
    The system is monitored by a series of controls located in a nearby
electrical equipment building, which also includes the
instrumentation and batteries. Each day the village leader, David
Santos, reads the panel meter. The measurements are also recorded
automatically on tape, and Santos sends the cassettes each week to
Lewis for analysis. Testing is expected to continue several more
years.
    Energy officials say the cost of energy from a photovoltaic system
is already competitive with alternative power sources for
applications requiring no more than 5,000 kilowatt hours of
consumption a year, and that photovoltaics are likely to be the least
expensive source of decentralized electrical generation in
underdeveloped countries.
    ''The Schuchuli project is no more expensive than the cost of
stringing power lines into the village,'' said Andrea Davey, a
spokesman for the Department of Energy, ''and once you install it, it
costs almost nothing.''
    The Lewis center calculates that the energy price of Schuchuli and
comparable systems, on a life-cycle cost basis, is $1.76 per kilowatt
hour on an annualized basis, assuming a ''moderate growth'' in market
demand, compared with $1.55 for the same amount of electricity from
the tribe's utility authority and $1.91 from the nearest private
power company - in addition to the several hundred thousand dollars
for stringing the power lines. A diesel system would cost 82 cents to
$1.27 per kilowatt hour, depending on the price of fuel.
    ''We have approved and funded 38 projects,'' said Bill Pearson,
director of the Indian Health Service office of environmental health.
At Sweetwater on the Navajo Reservation, several hundred miles
northeast of here, solar energy powers two pumps that furnish the
drinking water for some 25 homes. Washington will spend some $650
million on solar energy this year, and $3.8 million of that is
earmarked for the Indian Health Service solar photovoltaic program.
    Pearson said that solar costs were falling dramatically. ''We paid
$22 per watt for solar power at Sweetwater two summers ago,'' he
said. ''Last year it was down to $11 a watt, now its down to about
$7. Compare that with $300 a watt for the original photovoltaic cells
in Skylab.'' (The 10,000-watt Skylab space station, orbited in 1973,
is the largest solar array ever built.)
    ''Put it another way,'' he said. ''The cost of bringing electricity
into Sweetwater would have been $300,000, but it cost us only
$33,000, and today the cost would only be about $12,000. It's a lot
like the electronic calculator or the transistor radio. And it's
quite possible that before too long you'll be able to buy a roll of
photovoltaic cells like you buy roofing paper now, and have
carpenters put it on.''
    The Papago reservation, with some 8,800 inhabitants, is the
country's second largest. About two-thirds of its villages -
communities with at least 10 residents - have been electrified, most
during the last decade.
    
    
ny-0622 2350edt
***************