Praise God nobody got hit, though it hurts a lot what happened last Thursday. I was traveling back from Munich from the inter solar trade fair when I got an email. As I'm not in Mali now, I got the news via Daouda Zonou a prof working at Bethel. I will try to explain what happened from what I learned so far by email.
Thursday morning the worst case scenario happened at Bethel radio station. A direct lightning strike hit the radio tower, and transferred into the 220 volt grid. In the radio station a distribution switch scattered in pieces. About 100 meters further under the water tower the automatic timer scattered in pieces with such force that the distribution panel blew open. Another 80 meters further on at the central inverter places and batteries, two big expensive Victron inverters fried. Another 80 meters further away maybe two solar grid connected inverters are defect. As the grid is not working at the moment they cannot tell if these sunny boy inverters are fried too.
This news hit us very hard. Ewien and I were traveling back from Munich to Holland and we were at least for about an hour very silent driving back in the car. Questions go through your head like is it worthwhile the work at Bethel, is it ever gonna be sustainable? How much chance that this would happen again in future? Why does God allow such loss to happen. What should I have done earlier. Especially when it comes to protection. We only have a huge copper ground grid as protection, and the radio tower is grounded several times, but I know there exist more protection. But I have no experience with that as we have relatively not much lightning in Holland, at least nothing compared to Mali. Painful, painful, very inconvenient for Bethel, the radio not reaching their thousands of people. So painful. Luckily one circuit for the student buildings on another Victron inverter was still working. Only the radio being part of the main electrical system, took out the main system. Commercial value loss about $7000 without probably upcoming shipping costs..... Painful, how will we deal with this?
An hour later my optimism started to come back. I grew up on a farm and the idea hit me that we were used to loose and gain from nature a lot all the time. When there was no rain enough we had to irrigate that is about €1000 per day loss to save your harvest. When doing your work, expensive machines break and need expensive repairs..... So I grew up with these kind of difficulties which were just part of business and you learned to just deal with them and continue working with a positive spirit and rest in Gods grace for what you do gain out of nature.
But Bethel is not easily looked at like a business.. Do we need to look more at it like a business? Well for me at least it helps to concentrate less on the losses and look more at the potential gain. Gain not so much in finances, but in saved lives. Bethel is a place where teachers are teaching students become teachers. These teachers go out and teach many people. The impact in society is huge. For the radio station too. Do we need to repair the radio station? Yes I absolutely believe so, they reach thousands of people with their daily teaching and fun programs that make life joyful.
Sustainability! There is no wisdom in simply replacing the broken inverters and breakers. That is taking your chances on statistics how easily we would be hit by direct lightning again. Yes it did work last two years, but we cannot take the chances again with this experience in our head. We got a warning from nature this time without human casualty. Especially working in the radio station during rainy storms is really dangerous.
Last Thursday at the Inter Solar trade fair in Munich I visited for several hours three different vendors of anti lightning materials and over voltage protection. I got inspired with their knowledge and experience and made a follow up appointment for next week in Holland where one of the suppliers had an office too. You get the picture? while I was trying to get knowledge about lightning protection, it actually already happened that morning at bethel..... Wasn't I afraid earlier and willing to put in more protection? I looked into more protection in a shop in Bamako, but the seller did not know how to choose what size and amount and points where to add this protection. And the protection were expensive pieces like $500 per piece, so I decided to wait with this extra protection till I would know how to do it right and find the money needed for these materials.
Bethel school is not yet enough like a business where there is extra income to deal with losses. We are working on this. Land has been bought to grow crops. A garden is put in action to provide food for humans and animals. The chicken farm will generate income in the future. In the future Bethel needs to grow financially to place where there is budget to replace over voltage protectors and lightning arrestors. These devices are made to go defect when lightning hits so to spare the expensive inverters. At the moment Bethel school is in expanding and modernizing and there is simply no money left to deal with losses. During next week I will contact several business contacts to see what we need to replace, install and what the prices will be. Of course there is no warranty against over voltage due to lightning! When nature hits, than equipment warranty is out of the question. Though I hope we will find a lot of generosity to overcome last week losses.
Friday Douda sent me another email with further investigation. The one working Victron is now powering the water pump manually to provide water for the people living out there. One of the sunny boys for solar feed in is working and one is dead. Two big Victron quatro 5000 have several fried parts and do not start up anymore. The total loss seems three inverters, automatic timer for water pump and a distribution box in the radio station.
Very much depending on hardware repair costs I now estimate that including extra lightning protection and shipment we will need to raise about $7000-$10.000 to get this school and radio station working again. If you feel called to help us financially out than there are several ways. Gifts in the U.S. can go to C&MA in Colorado springs with label "Bethel solar energy project Mali". Gifts can also be sent directly to C&MA Holland, please contact me for details. Not done yet, but I will try to let Ewien put more information on our website how to donate to the project.
Thank you so much for you prayers and encouragement,
Anco van Bergeijk
