Solar Energy Installation Project Management

Introduction Establishment of renewable energy resources to curb global warming is receiving immense support from a majority of the governments (Atkinson 2001). Atkinson claims, â€Å"People have used non-renewable sources of energy like coal and petroleum for a long time† (2001, p. 45).Advertising We will write a custom proposal sample on Solar Energy Installation Project Management specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More These sources have significantly contributed to the emission of greenhouse gases, prompting the nations to look for alternative sources of energy. The sun has proved to be the sole source of energy that does not contribute to environmental pollution. Moreover, the source of energy is inexhaustible and naturally acquired. What’s more, the cost of solar power continues to go down as many people appreciate its use in the society (Ghosh et al. 2002). It underlines the reason many institutions and households a re installing solar panels in their buildings. Project Overview Countries like India have also established â€Å"grid connected solar photovoltaic power systems as part of their action plan for climate change† (Goletsis, Psarras Samouilidis 2003, p.139). Many solar energy projects are in progress as countries respond to the call for environmental conservation. The sun is an excellent source of energy, but many people have not taken its advantage. The sun emits most of its energy in the form of heat and light, which can be harnessed and converted into other forms of energy for various uses (Haapasalo, Ingalsuo Lenkkeri 2006). Long ago, people used solar power to keep warm. They could use solar energy to start a fire and warm themselves. Later, some people came up with passive solar energy plans to keep their houses warm. They built their houses in such a way that the floors and walls could absorb heat energy from the sun and emit it during the night. With time, people learnt that the sun could act as an essential source of energy. In 1839, scientists discovered photovoltaic, which was a breakthrough in the history of humankind. According to Haralambopoulos and Polatidis, photovoltaic (solar) cells are â€Å"large-area semiconductors that convert sunlight directly into electricity† (2003, p. 967). Photovoltaics can be used in numerous gadgets, which include satellites, watches, telecommunication devices and in calculators. Photovoltaics are not widely used because they are very expensive. However, the reduction in cost of energy power should make photovoltaics affordable.  Changes in global fuel cost have led to many organisations losing a lot of money.Advertising Looking for proposal on project management? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Adoption of solar energy would go a long way towards saving the countries and companies from costs attributed to the energy crisis. The fact that solar energy is inexhaustible makes it the most reliable source of energy for business and nations at large (Kendrick 2009). It is alleged that the available oil reserves will only sustain the world for at most 40 years. It implies that countries will have to look for alternative sources of energy before the oil reserves get exhausted. Solar power is inexhaustible, which makes it the next source of energy that countries are likely to adopt.  The objective of solar energy installation project is to ensure that households get the most required light and heat energy. It is hard to run domestic chores without light and heat energy in the houses. Consequently, installing solar panels would go a long way to facilitate domestic duties. The project aims to equip 1000 households with solar panels by the end of six months. The installation will be the first phase of the project. Another objective of the project is to integrate families into the global campaign on environmental conservation. Homes , contribute to environmental pollution through the use of nonrenewable sources of energy like coal and petroleum. Installing solar power would lower the rate of environmental pollution linked to households. This project covers 3000 houses from the outskirts of London. Majority of the families outside the city of London rely on electric energy supplied by the government. The project intends to equip all the households with solar power by the end of one and a half years. The project will not involve non-governmental organisations and public facilities that might be found in the region that the project covers. It will strictly focus on domestic households.  One of the project’s deliverables is the establishment of proper procedures to facilitate installation of the solar panels. The other deliverable is the installation of solar power system in two households to demonstrate the realism of the project in outskirts of London. The project desires to encourage the society to embr ace solar energy as the only source of energy that is sustainable and does not contribute to environmental pollution. Work breakdown structure Kerzner alleges, â€Å"Success of project management depends, to a significant extent, on the manager’s ability to effectively specify the work contents of the project in terms of its activities and deliverables† (2009, p. 113). One of the instruments of planning and managing the activities of a project is work breakdown structure (WBS).Advertising We will write a custom proposal sample on Solar Energy Installation Project Management specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Kerzner alleges, â€Å"The work breakdown structure identifies and groups the project elements in a way that defines the overall range of the project† (2004, p. 75). Every lower level of the structure stands for a progressively more detailed definition of a project component (Kerzner 2004). The constituents may be in form of goods or services. In other words, the work breakdown structure is â€Å"a hierarchical representation of the work contents, whereby the project is divided into progressively smaller elements. The elements found at the lowest level of the hierarchy are known as work packages† (Rogers et al. 2008, p. 4219). The success of the project lies in the ability of the project manager to accurately identify, organise and run each work package. The entire work requires being broken down into a number of successive activities that work coherently to achieve the overall goals of the project (Solangi et al. 2011). The figure below represents the high-level planning workflow of solar energy system installation. Assessment report will involve analysing and reporting on the energy system that the homes are currently using to identify its merits and demerits. The report will give a detailed account of how the existing power system contributes to environmental pollution as w ell as it inefficiency (Cleland 2002). The compilation of assessment report will run concurrently with a pilot project aimed at determining feasibility of the intended project. The pilot project will help the managers to determine if the project will work. Besides, it will help the managers to understand how the society will respond to the project. The success of any project depends on how it is received by the target population. Prior to rolling out the project, it is imperative to conduct a pilot project to understand its reception.  The assessment report will help the project managers to have clear information about the project. It will assist them to evaluate and compare the cost of the project to its benefits.Advertising Looking for proposal on project management? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Besides, the report will give a clear regional input-output analysis, which is vital for the managers to know if the project will be of significant benefit to the society. The solar installation project is not only intended to help the community to cut down on environmental pollution, but it is also designed to help the nation to reduce its energy cost. Consequently, one of the work packages of the project will be to identify the existing energy service company (ESCO) billing structures and come up with a database for the same. The database will be crucial when determining the energy billing structure to adopt.  Another task that the installation project will cover will be carrying out an audit of the energy saving opportunities. One way of reducing energy cost is reducing the rate of energy consumption. Besides, it is imperative to lower the rate of energy consumption for solar energy to be enough. The audit will help the managers to identify possible ways of maximising the usage of solar energy. Besides, they will identify the available options of solar power projects and settle for the most efficient. Work breakdown dictionary ID Task name Description Duration Start Finish 1.0 Assessment report The report gives an account of the available energy system and its costs. It documents how the existing power system contributes to environmental pollution. 20 days Jan 10 ‘15 Jan 30 ‘15 1.1 Costs/Benefits analysis A cost/benefits analysis will be run to compare the existing and intended energy systems. The analysis will identify the current ESCO billing structure, possible alternative billing structures and establish a database for the same 20 days Feb 2 ‘15 Feb 22 ‘15 1.2 Identify energy saving opportunities A field study will be conducted to determine how the households utilise energy and come up with measures to save energy. On-site energy assessment will be done, and an energy review carried out. 20 days Feb 25 ‘15 Mar 17 ‘15 2.0 Pilot solar energy project Managers will run a pilot project to determine the feasibility of the project. The pilot project will help to determine if the community will embrace the intended project. 28 days Mar 20 ‘15 Apr 17 ‘15 2.1 Project design and implementation After the pilot project, managers will sit down with other employees to develop the overall solar installation project based on the findings of the pilot project. The end of the project plan will mark the onset of project implementation and monitoring 90 days Apr 20 ‘15 July 7 ‘15 Determining package size This project will use â€Å"hammock† activities to ascertain the degree of the lowest package. Many people believe that each work package ought to last for about 80 hours and not more than a month. It cannot happen in this project since it would lead to the establishment of millions of work packages. Therefore, the â€Å"hammock† activity will be used to break the task into smaller packages by splitting the total work into distinct and coherent sub-elements. Activity schedule The success of any project depends on the ability to organise and sequence activities in an orderly manner (White Fortune 2002). Project managers ought to identify the activities that are interdependent and sequence them accordingly. Besides, they need to determine the independent activities and schedule them in a way that they run concurrently to save on time. For decades, countries have incurred enormous economic loss due to the energy crisis (Huraib, Hasnain Alawaji 2007). The project will entail a number of activities, which will be implemented in a sequence to guarantee the success of the project. These activities will include compilation of assessment report to understand the degree of energy requirement. Additionally, the project managers will evaluate the costs and benefits of solar energy and analyse the existing ESCO billing structures. The project will b e preceded by a pilot project aimed at ascertaining the feasibility of the project. The following is the work plan for the project: S. No Position in WBS Activity Depending on Duration 1 1.0 Assessment report – 20 days 2 1.1 Costs/Benefits of current vs. previous energy – 6 days 3 1.1.0 Economic input/output RIO scrutiny 2 2 days 4 1.1.1 Analyse present ESCO billing – 5 days 5 1.1.2 Identify substitute ESCO’s billing 4 4 days 6 1.1.2.1 Establish a database of substitute 5 3 days 7 1.2 Identify possible energy saving opportunities – 7 days 8 1.2.1 Energy audit evaluation 7 3 days 9 1.2.2 Collect data – 4 days 10 1.2.3 Analyse data 9 3 days 11 1.2.2.0 On-site assessment 9 1 day 12 1.2.2.1 Energy review study 11 2days 13 2.0 Run pilot project 12 14 days 14 2.1 Project design 13 10 days 15 2.2 ID feasible solar energy project options 14 4 days 16 2.3 Implementation 15 3 months Project network It is imperat ive to identify the dependencies and to sequence them correctly in a network so as to come up with a project network (Andersen, Cook Marceau 2004). Dependencies are activities that depend on others and cannot be executed before the independent activities (Wustenhagen et al. 2007). The above schedule shows some of the dependence activities in this project. The importance of establishing the project network is to show the order in which the various activities will be executed. Besides, the system helps to identify the critical path, which shows the principal activities. Critical path facilitates in work prioritization to ensure that the project is completed on time. The network technique helps the project manager to identify where to start the project, the order of activities and where to end the project. Besides, the method helps the project manager to identify the relevant activities and trail their execution (Burke 1999). On the other hand, Gantt diagram helps the project manager to identify the various activities of the project. However, Gantt diagram does not allow the manager to determine the critical path. Instead, the manager ends up executing all the outlined activities without understanding their interdependence. For the Gantt technique, the project may take a long duration since it is hard to identify the critical path and the most important activities. The project will use optimization technique to allocate time to the various activities. It will guarantee that critical activities get adequate time. Additionally, it will ensure that managers do not take a lot of time on trivial activities. Resource estimation One of the benefits of breaking the work into smaller packages is that â€Å"it provides accurate cost control if and only if the line managers can determine the costs at this level of detail† (De Wit 2004, p. 167). The managers will use the Ratio Method to estimate the total cost of the project. The ratio method is a top-down approach, which is conducted through estimation (Vine 2005). The managers will do a rough estimate of the requisite resources based on what the project will require for its completion. Ratio Method technique does not require the elements of work breakdown structure. Nevertheless, the elements will help the project managers to understand the required resources based on workflow. For the activities that require an enormous amount of money and time, the project managers will do the estimations based on the available data from previous projects. It will be difficult for the managers to come up with a correct estimate of the cost of the entire project. However, the estimation process will be conducted in a way that takes into account the changes that might arise during project realization. Hence, financial estimates for each activity will be raised a bit to cater for any unforeseen changes.  A number of resources will be required to complete the project. They include both material and human res ources. In the case of human resource, the project will need experts in solar panel installation. The experts will be assigned the duty to install and manage the solar panels once the project managers learn that the project is feasible, and it receives support of the community. On the other hand, the project will require research and data analysts who will be responsible for researching on the existing solar energy installation projects. They will identify and analyse the challenges that the projects face, how the challenges are overcome and project feasibility. In the case of material resources, the project will require numerous resources, which range from solar panels, inverters, batteries and photovoltaic diodes. These resources are essential for the project to be complete. Below is a summary of the costs associated with the project. Resources Estimated cost ($) Human Resources $120,0000 Solar panels $40,000 Inverters $25,000 batteries $75,000 Photovoltaic diodes $15 ,000 Miscellaneous expenses $20,000 Total $295,000 Financial Manager will be responsible for controlling the cash flow during the timescale of the work package. The manager will liaise with procurement staff to purchase all the necessary materials. It is important that cash flow is managed from a central location to minimise wastage. Therefore, the finance manager will account for the money spent throughout the project. Risk assessment and conclusion The project faces a number of constraints, one of which is financial challenges. The cost of installing the solar power system is high. Besides, the amount of energy generated by the system is less relative to the energy produced by the non-renewable sources. Solar power relies on the sun. Hence, it would be hard for the families to use the energy, especially during winter seasons (Kern Howlett 2009). The families will be advised to cut down on their rate of energy consumption to curb these challenges.  Solar energy installati on projects are susceptible to a number of risks. The risks include financial risk, operational risk, technological risk, climate and the weather risk and construction risk. Financial risk may arise due to insufficient capital (Bing et al. 1999). On the other hand, operational risk may occur in the form of project closure due to scarcity of resources or component failure. Technological risk may arise as a result of the equipments not producing the expected amount of electric energy. Changes in the weather condition may also affect the project. Risk assessment matrix Risk identified Management Reactions Probability Cause of the risk Manageable Solution There might be insufficient financial resources Gathering adequate financial resources Low Poor planning Soliciting for funding from financial institutions The project may come to a halt due to inadequate resources Not starting the project before all resources are mobilised Very low Poor planning Mobilising resources before laun ching the project The equipments may not produce the required amount of energy Not purchasing equipments before they are tested Low Technical problem Purchasing electrical gadgets from authorised dealers There may be alterations in electricity generation Ensuring that solar panels are clean, and no snow covers them Low Natural cause Cleaning the solar panels regularly Conclusion The accomplishment of the solar energy installation project will depend on accurate identification of the work packages and proper allocation of human and financial resources. The work breakdown structure has been provided to help the project manager to identify all the activities that the project involves. Besides, a project network has been prepared to assist the project manager to prioritise the different activities. The project is vulnerable to numerous risks. However, if the management team conducts thorough preparation prior to starting the project, it will avert all the potential hazards. The o verall cost of the project stand at $295,000. To ensure that the project is completed on time, the management team should make sure that it has mobilized the necessary resources, and it has evaluated all the potential risks. Reference List Andersen, P, Cook, N Marceau, J 2004, ‘Dynamic innovation strategies and stable networks in the construction industry: Implanting solar energy projects in the Sydney Olympic Village’, Journal of Business Research, vol. 57, no. 4, pp. 351-360. 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White, D Fortune, J 2002, ‘Current practice in project management- an empirical study’, International Journal of Project Management, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 1-11. Wustenhagen, R, Wolsink, M Burer, M 2007, ‘Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation: an introduction to the concept’, Energy Policy, vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 2683-2691. This proposal on Solar Energy Installation Project Management was written and submitted by user Qu1nt1n to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.