Visiting the Soyapango Campus

My host university, Universidad Don Bosco, has two campuses. We live just a few blocks from the small graduate campus in Antiguo Cuscatlán in the southwest corner of the San Salvador metro area. The main campus is located in Soyapango, way over on the eastern edge of the capital's urban area. It's about a half hour by car between the two campuses if it's not rush hour, or somewhat over an hour by bus. Soyapango is San Salvador's poorest, most crime-ridden district. The university was established there by design, as its mission is to provide higher education to the poor. About 70% of UDB's undergrads are from Soyapango.

Today was my first full day at the Soyapango campus. UDB is providing me a desk at both campuses, with the expectation that I'll mostly work in A.C. while developing and teaching the class, but will spend more time at Soyapango later on when I'm helping develop a demonstration energy project at that campus.

The visit to Soyapango was very busy and a lot of fun. I spent the morning with electro-mechanical engineering professor Anselmo Valdizon, who has since 2004 been building, operating, and maintaining a solar power system that uses a parabolic mirror system as the heat source for a steam engine-driven generator. The engine is a custom-built 3hp, two-piston unit made by a small shop in the U.S. The system was built under a grant from a branch of USAID with the original intent that it would power an off-grid village. The system works but proved too complex and maintenance-intensive for that application, so USAID approved re-purposing it as an on-campus educational tool. I didn't get to see it fully up and running, but Ing. Valdizon and I had a great time checking out all the components.

(left) Sunlight focused on the solar boiler

After lunch I spent the afternoon touring all the different engineering labs with faculty member Nelson Quintanilla. Lots to see, much of it quite impressive. We spent most of our time in the electrical lab where they have a small collection of PV equipment (module, inverter, charge controller, batteries) and the metrology lab, which plays an important role as a center for calibrating instruments and quality checking products for Salvadoran industry. Nelson has some ideas about possible on-campus energy projects, including a pumped storage hydro demonstration project that would make use of an existing underground reservoir that stores rainwater for dry season irrigation of the campus landscape. This may not be feasible for a number of reasons, but performing the site survey, design and econ analysis would be a great way to learn about micro hydro and power markets.