Supplementary material for the publication: J.D. Nixon, K. Bhargava and E. Gaura, Community-based solar energy interventions: lessons from two Rwandan refugee camps, 2020

The dataset deposited here was prepared under the EPSRC-funded Humanitarian Engineering and Energy for Displacement research project (EP/P029531/1). The project aimed to understand energy needs of displaced communities, create an evidence base on the usage of different energy interventions and provide recommendations for improved design of future energy interventions to better meet the needs of people. 

As part of the project, we deployed a Standalone Solar System for a Community Hall in Nyabiheke camp, Rwanda, and a PV-battery Microgrid in Kigeme camp, Rwanda. The microgrid supplies power to a playground and two nursery buildings. It powers a total of 20 CPE (each with 3 LEDs) and 10 sockets. The standalone system at Hall powers 7 CPE (with 3 LEDs each) and 4 sockets. The aim of the study was to (a) understand the energy consumption behaviour, light usage and other enabled uses within the set location in each camp (b) create an evidence base on the value of energy and its benefits in displaced contexts (c) identify best practice in the construction, control and operation of the respective systems as a shared energy resource.

The system data used for the performance analysis for this study (July 2019 and March 2020) is deposited here along with the metadata. The results from analysis are presented in a paper titled 'Performance analysis of standalone solar systems in refugee camps in Rwanda' (currently under submission). The scripts for analysis can be found at our Github account Cogent Labs under HEED-Microgrid and HEED-Hall repositories.