Analysis of Grid-Independent Clean Energy Solutions in Vietnamese Schools

Central Vietnam and the communities located within the country experience a high level of natural disaster due to flooding and typhoons. The mission of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the United States Army Corps of Engineers is to build new primary schools that have been damaged due to flooding. The goal of this research is to find a viable solution for the powering of each school, as many communities can’t handle the additional grid load of a fully functioning school. In this research, two main methods were considered after brainstorming possible solutions. First, the total usage of a typical school housing roughly 300 students and staff were calculated. Then, monocrystalline photovoltaic cells were evaluated using given efficiencies, energy usage, and incident shortwave radiation to calculate the total number of panels needed. Small scale wind turbines were also considered, using power curves and a PDF of wind speeds in Ho Chi Minh City for the year 2022, the amount of annual energy generated by turbines was calculated. It was found that solar energy was a much more viable solution. The average price of solar was found to be $19961.77 while the lowest price of wind turbines was $240000. With these high material costs, not factoring in workers or maintenance cost, wind energy is clearly not viable. Instead, installing a solar system on and around the school would be able to accomplish the requirements of the school.