Background

To achieve the Government’s overall objective to electrify 80% of the country’s population by 2040, this rural electrification process has to be accompanied by skills transfer, capacity building and awareness measures as well as technical trainings in the area of renewable energy sources such as solar PV, biomass, pico hydropower and wind for technicians, installers and operators.

For installation, operation and maintenance of the mini-grids, a local workforce has to be built up in order to support the private developers and service providers, and to strengthen the renewable energy sector. The required capacities apply to mini-grid generation plants.

But also the demand in deployment, maintenance and repair of stand-alone solar PV systems on household level, known as solar home systems (shs) is continuously rising.

Therefore, HWK and GIZ seek to improve the competencies of the labour market for private sector led investments in small-scale renewable energy generation and distribution in Uganda, through the upgrading of institutional and company training.

Today

Entry Level ATP as an independent unit for Solar-Pico-Systems is currently in progress. After completing this, we are planning to work on the next Level 3, which shall include hybrid systems, such as other renewable energy sources like biomass, pico hydropower or wind, supplemented by solar water pumping both for irrigation and livestock.

There are 2 lecturing systems applied in NVTI, in particular for this program

• Solar-PV Level 1 – Short courses
  In weekly modules, different components of the solar-home- systems are considered. Altogether, practical details are taught in Foundations, Basics in solar PVpanels and DC loads, Charge controllers and batteries, Inverters and AC installations.
  Those modules take altogether 4 weeks. Participants are mainly- but not only practitioners who work already with solar installations but want to elaborate their knowledge.
  Next courses see below.

• Solar- PV – Electrician course
  This course is approved as a full ATP –course of 8 months (Level 1= 6 months, Level 2 = 8 months). Above mentioned topics are here taught in more details and connected to company practical periods. Additional modules referring to business plans and soft-skills are added. Entry requirement is A-Level or advanced practical experience in Solar technologies. The students will be certified as a “Solar-PV-Electrician”.
  This course will roll out early next year.

Future

All the partners (NVTI, HWK, GIZ) are currently working on a Renewable Energy Training Centre, that is under construction at NVTI premises. This centre will host all courses mentioned above and be equipped with latest training facilities for SHS as well as minigrid plants as well as other renewable energy measures. It will be a state- of the art centre for the whole region.

Next solar courses: Short course in Solar PV

4-week course, divided into 2 x 2 weeks learning units

• Course 1
  Part 1: 3.- 14. September 2018: Basics of Solar PV, Installation of Solar Panels/Modules, DC Loads
  Part 2: 1.-12. October 2018: sprich Charge controller, batteries, inverters, AC Installations

• Course 2
  Part 1: 15.-26. October 2018
  Part 2: 19.-30. November 2018

• Course 3
  Part 1: 5.-16. November 2018
  Part 2: 3.-14. December 2018

Information

For more information about the training courses at Nakawa Training Institute:
Call: +256 773 265 908, or + 256 782 586 428, or +256 785 484 473
Email: hwktvet@gmail.com, or afrotechs@yahoo.com, or klaus.nuessel@giz.de