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Welcome to The Open Source Solar Project (OSSP)

The sun is the ultimate open energy source and OSSP aims to help everyone harness it. Solar PV in the developing world has been growing at an exponential rate and has managed to provide energy access to millions of people, unfortunately adequate standards and appropriate training programs have not followed suit. Many of the equipment vendors and installers have little to no training nor are they subject to any regulations. This has lead to the proliferation of many improperly designed PV systems that not only lead to poor end-user experiences but also represent a safety risk. This website is an effort to improve small-scale battery-based (SSBB) solar PV system design, safety, and user experiences in these areas by providing appropriate information, resources and tools on the universal, basic aspects of off-grid system design and installation in these contexts. OSSP hopes to serve as both a direct resource in these areas and as a readily-adaptable base for the development of low-cost training materials and programs that are tailored to the needs and standards of a particular area. OSSP is license-free running on the same platform as Wikipedia - please reach out to alex@opensourcesolar.org if you are interested in contributing or translating.

Aims of OSSP:

Provide an appropriate level of detail for each topic in a way that is practical and accessible for an audience with a varying level of technology literacy.
Present universal concepts in a way that is universal. Information or resources that are location specific should be added to a country page.
Provide high quality graphics, well-designed graphics that can be used for training manuals and programs.
Utilize graphics that include minimal text to enable easy translation using captions.

Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.

Primary articles

All links with arrows next to them are categories, not articles. Click on the arrow to expand the category to show the pages in that category. Most categories will have a page that has the same name that will be the best place to start.