The department of solar PV designs programs to promote and implement projects using solar power, both at household and institutional levels. Small scale solar PV, or solar lamps and torches, provide simple and relatively inexpensive means to implement solar technology and to avoid the use of kerosene lamps. Air pollution within the household can decrease with the decreased use of kerosene, and money previously used for daily fuel purchases for kerosene lamps is made available for other expenditures or savings.
CREEC, a GOGLA member, runs various activities dealing with solar PV. Steadily pushing to expand its services, a Test Catalogue was recently published by CREEC`s solar laboratory to provide local and regional organizations with the possibility of testing their products at an affordable rate. Ongoing work includes testing solar modules, batteries, lamps and pico-PV products for quality assurance for different solar companies. Based on the experience of the solar energy kiosks established at the end of 2012 and successfully running to date, CREEC has launched many other Kiosk in an adjusted setting. Originally established as a feasibility study, the Solar Energy Kiosk now also serves as a field laboratory which gives especially solar lamp manufacturers and distributors the possibility to test their products under actual African field conditions. The high need for testing services was already clearly underlined by the first field test results: within the first six months of operation, 20 % of the solar lamps used in the Solar Energy Kiosk, all Lighting Africa certified, failed.
Within the area of consultancy, the data collection for a study about the Development Stage of the Ugandan Solar Market, carried out for GIZ, is in itsfinal phase. CREEC visited more than 65 Ugandan solar companies and got in contact with selected governmental bodies. The experience CREEC gained over the last years clearly showed again that there is a lack of communication within the solar sector. Therefore, CREEC initiated the Solar Forum Uganda to link the different players of the Ugandan solar market. The first forum was held om March 14, 2014 with the theme “Relevance of solar products quality – quality makes business”.
CREEC has established a laboratory quality management system for the two testing labs and accreditation under the ISO/IEC 17025 standard.
In addition to awareness creation and training, CREEC uses its state-of-the-art solar PV laboratory to test various types of solar PV equipment ranging from panels and converters to lamps. Click HERE to learn more about how the work in our solar laboratory can benefit manufacturers and distributors of solar PV products across the globe.
Head of Solar
Mr Paul Asiimwe
Email: pasiimwe@creec.or.ug
Tel: +256-785620346