Renewable Energy Project in East Timor

This assignment analyzes a renewable energy project undertaken by the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) in East Timor. The project aimed to provide solar lighting solutions to villages lacking access to electricity. The analysis delves into various aspects of the project, including its timeline, budget management, risk mitigation strategies, and the involvement of local communities. It highlights the challenges faced, particularly in sourcing materials and managing the supply chain, as well as the successes achieved through community engagement and partnerships with local organizations.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
International Project Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................2
2. Project Overview.............................................................................................................2
3. Project Management Plan................................................................................................2
3.1 Project Management Approach.................................................................................3
3.2 Project Scope.............................................................................................................3
3.3 Project Milestone.......................................................................................................4
3.3.1 Major Deliverables.............................................................................................4
3.3.2 Project Timeline..................................................................................................4
3.4 Work Breakdown Structure.......................................................................................4
3.5 Risk Management......................................................................................................6
3.6 Monitoring and Control of project.............................................................................7
4. Critical Analysis..............................................................................................................7
5. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................8
7. References........................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction
The Alternative technology association popularly known as ATA is a not for profit
organization. It works with an aim of sustainable living in homes and communities (Andraka,
2014). This organization operates in and across Australia and conducts international projects as
well. This report discusses one of the most significant projects of ATA, which is the solar project
in East Timor. This project was particularly undertaken, as there was lot of energy crisis in east
Timor with 355 of the houses without an access to national electricity grid (Amritanand, Divya,
Gosh & Vinod, 2016).
2. Project Overview
The project background is elaborated in the following table-
Project name East Timor Project
Organization Name Alternate Technology Association
Project Value $3000000
Project Funding/ Sponsors Google Impact Challenge Funding Australia
Project Objective Providing solar electricity access to the households
devoid of access to national electricity grid (Bond,
Fuller & Aye, 2012)
Project Complexity High
Project Time 2014 to 2016
3. Project Management Plan

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The project was particularly complex as it aimed at designing a specific solar lightning
system. A lot of technical research and design methodologies were implemented with the
supervision of ATA volunteers. The project management plan is elaborated in the following
paragraphs (Larson & Gray, 2013).
3.1 Project Management Approach
The project was plan in a systemic way because of the size of the project. The steps
involved in proper project management are –
1) ATA made sure that the people value the systems that would be installed in their house
by involving certain financial schemes (Girardeau, 2017).
2) Another important approach undertaken by ATA was the community ownership part.
This involved the village management committee working with the ATA community to handle
the project in a better way.
3) Work breakdown approach was undertaken in order to complete the project within the
schedule time that is two years, keeping in mind the wet and dry season East Timor experiences.
This is because the installation procedure cannot be implemented during the wet seasons (Prabhu
& Suresh 2016).
The project Manager Kate held regular monthly meeting with the volunteers to supervise
the work progress.
3.2 Project Scope
The Project mainly aimed at providing solar lighting to the houses in remote village and
isolated areas of the East Timor (Zahnd & Kimber, 2016). The company submitted a detailed

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proposal to Google for funding, which was approved, and the project went to the initiation phase.
The major deliverable of the project was installation of 800 solar systems on Timorese houses
apart from training the local technicians (Sovacool, 2013).
3.3 Project Milestone
3.3.1 Major Deliverables
The major deliverable of this project is elaborated in the following table-
Deliverable 1 Designing the Systems
Deliverable 1 Installation of the system to peoples’ houses
Deliverable 3 Training the local technicians and the users
3.3.2 Project Timeline
The Timeline of the Project is elaborated in the Following table-
Task Name Duration Start Finish
East Timor Project 730 days Fri 03-01-14 Thu 20-10-16
Project Starts 0 days Fri 03-01-14 Fri 03-01-14
Project Planning 156 days Fri 03-01-14 Fri 08-08-14
Project implementation 236 days Mon 11-08-14 Mon 06-07-15
Testing 107 days Tue 07-07-15 Wed 02-12-15
System Installation 173 days Thu 03-12-15 Mon 01-08-16
Project handover 58 days Tue 02-08-16 Thu 20-10-16
Project Closure 0 days Thu 20-10-16 Thu 20-10-16
3.4 Work Breakdown Structure
The WBS of the project is as follows-

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WBS Task Name
0 East Timor Project
1 Project Starts
2 Project Planning
2.1 Feasibility Study
2.2 Requirement Collection
2.3 Resource requirements
2.4 Budget Estimation
2.5 Time Estimation
2.6 Document Report
3 Project implementation
3.1 Resource and Equipments Sourcing
3.2 Assembling the Systems
3.3 Developing the Systems
3.4 Integrating the developed Systems
4 Testing
4.1 Unit Testing
4.2 System Testing
4.3 user Acceptance Testing
5 System Installation
5.1 Installing the systems in the targeted household
5.2 User feedback
5.3 Debugging( if required)
5.4 Training the users and local technicians
6 Project handover
6.1 Document Report
6.2 Document Archive
6.3 Payment completion
6.4 Users' feedback
7 Project Closure

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East Timor Project
Project Starts Project Planning
Feasibility Study
Requirement
Collection
Resource
requirements
Budget Estimation
Time Estimation
Document Report
Project implementation
Resource and
Equipments
Sourcing
Asseblimg the
Systems
Developing the
Systems
Integrating the
developed Systems
Testing
Unit Testing
System Testing
user Acceptance
Testing
System Installation
Installing the
systems in the
targeted household
User feedback
Debugging( if
required)
Training the users
and local
technicians
Project handover
Document Report
Document Archive
Payment completion
Users' feedback
Project Closure
Figure 1: the Work breakdown Structure of the Project
(Source: Generated by author using MS Project)
3.5 Risk Management
The risk management plan and the risks involved with the project are as follows
(Pritchard & PMP, 2014)-
1) The major risks or complexity of the project was to engaging with the local
communities. This was particularly because East Timor had a troubled past of people coming in
and taking over their country. Therefore, it seemed inappropriate for the foreign organization to
guide or order people.
2) The organization also faced some power issues as an ATA Australia was completely
an outsider or at least the people there perceived it in that way.
3) Exchange Rate risk was faced due to the import of supply materials from foreign
countries like China.
The risks were particularly managed by engaging with the local people and involving
them in the project.

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The exchange rate risk was managed by making an allowance for contingency in terms of
exchange rate. Purchasing the equipments and materials were considered to be an important part
of the budget.
3.6 Monitoring and Control of project
The primary concern about the project was its supply chain management. This was
because it was impossible to use local suppliers for the project under consideration. The actual
materials and equipments needed could not be fetched from Timorese organization. Therefore,
some components of the project were sourced from China through an ethical supply chain. The
other systems were designed in Melbourne as a part of the team effort that was needed for
increasing the battery life of the equipments.
4. Critical Analysis
The most striking feature of the project was the involvement of the local people to work
together with ATA. The project involved a small amount of donation from the people so that
they value the systems to be installed in their household and to contribute for managing and
implementing the project in a better way. Moreover, ATA had been working with East Timor
for more than 10 years. This worked in favor of the company as they had a well idea of the place
and the people. The partnership with the local organization further helped in project
implementation. Moreover, thorough testing procedures and training the local technicians helped
in implementing and managing the project more successfully.

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Figure 2: Representing the Gantt chart of the project
(Source: Generated by author using MS Project)
5. Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that ATA had a noble goal of
working in this project to provide lighting to the villages. The timeline of the project was
constricted, yet ATA managed to implement it successfully with the help of local people.
Involving the villagers to contribute to the project was an excellent idea of ensuring the better
maintenance of the systems.

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7. References
Andraka, A., 2014. The Alternative Technology Association, Doctoral dissertation,
WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE.
Zahnd, A. & Kimber, H.M., 2016. Benefits from a renewable energy village electrification
system. Renewable Energy, 34(2): 362-368.
Bond, M., Fuller, R.J. & Aye, L., 2012. Sizing solar home systems for optimal development
impact. Energy policy, 42:699-709.
Sovacool, B.K., 2013, June. Energy poverty and development in Papua New Guinea: learning
from the teacher's solar lighting project. In Forum for Development Studies , Vol. 40, No. 2: 327-
349. Routledge.
Girardeau, H., 2017. Household Solar Adoption: A Systematic Review.
Pritchard, C. L., & PMP, P. R. 2014. Risk management: concepts and guidance. CRC Press.
Amritanand, S., Divya, P., Gosh, U.G. & Vinod, T., 2016, October. E-Cycle: An offgrid solution
for rural electrification. In Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2016: 507-
513. IEEE.
Prabhu, B.S.V. 7 Suresh, M., 2016, December. Applications of solar lantern systems—A review.
In Computational Intelligence and Computing Research (ICCIC), 2016 IEEE International
Conference on : 1-4 IEEE.