Developing technical training Content: Intermediary Level Service , Maintenance and Troubleshooting Content

Title Technical Consultant - Training Content Development
Timeline 4 months
Expected area of expertise Content development, Content Writing, Module Development, Technical Knowledge, Training,
Form to submit https://forms.gle/9r4TNWC7HQtL1mYH7

About SELCO Foundation

SELCO Foundation, an NGO established in 2010 is working on building a holistic ecosystem for sustainable energy access. In this regard, SELCO Foundation engages in technical, financial and social innovation, enterprise development, skill building and financial inclusion. The organisation works on demonstrating and catalysing the role of renewable energy across verticals of well- being, health, education, livelihoods and the built environment.

Context

With the current climate and energy crisis, the role of a clean, decentralised and sustainable energy source has become crucial. Not only does it provide accessible and affordable energy to off-grid areas, it also ensures a broad space for technological solutions and innovations to counter the current crisis and to work towards enabling the sustainable development goals. Yet there is a huge gap in the sector due to a lack of entrepreneurs/enterprises/organisations across the world, to build and promote a holistic and sustainable energy ecosystem. Selco Foundation, therefore, has been developing programmes to support, train and guide clean energy entrepreneurs and enterprises.

To help build the capacity and skills of CEE’s, in-depth training on the technical knowledge of the solar system is necessary. However there is a dearth of customised and easily understandable learning materials to deliver quality training for the incubatees. With SELCO’s open-source policy and aim to develop solutions for the sector, this project focuses on developing modules to impart technical aspects in a format that becomes usable, understandable and with little effort can be contextualised by anyone across the globe.

Objective

The objective is to develop training modules for the training of technicians from the clean energy enterprises that can be used for pre, during and post installation training. The training will also cover beginning, immediate and advanced learning levels for technicians. The aim of the training is to achieve the below mentioned goals.

  • To develop the needed technical skill sets for the technicians for doing service & maintenance and troubleshooting for intermediary level solar PV system
  • To provide hands-on support and practical exposure on service & maintenance of technical aspects
  • To provide hands-on support and practical exposure on intermediary level of troubleshooting
  • To build the capacity of the technician in the following areas:
    • Service & Maintenance for the intermediary level of faults (between 1 Kw and 10 Kw)
    • Develop and improve skills and knowledge on maintenance, service and troubleshooting
    • Provide advanced training to experienced technicians to increase their expertise
    • To enable the clean energy enterprises to provide better technical services for the end user

Scope of the Work

The scope of the work is to create customised practical Solar PV System service & maintenance and troubleshooting learning resources for Clean Energy Enterprises and technical personnel to build their skills to provide quality services to the end user.

The work will involve developing training content for clean energy enterprises, their technicians and technical personnel like electricians ,ITI / VTIs students etc including interactions and workshops with stakeholders, doing secondary research on the required technical service & maintenance aspects of solar energy systems and creating toolkits, modules, decks, (by means of documents, decks, guidelines, self-explanatory checklists and other easy to use formats) which can be used in totality and in modular formats to help build capacities of the target audience like CEEs , technicians, technical personnel like ITI/VTIs students , electrician etc.Through this exercise, the aim is to capture the concepts, best practices to give the learner a complete understanding of the Solar PV service & maintenance. The document should also be able to guide other stakeholders to be able to customise and replicate the training contents in their own contexts and geographies.

The contents are to be developed for the service & maintenance and troubleshooting of the solar PV system for the intermediary learning levels -

  • Intermediary level (Solar PV System between 1 Kw to 10 Kw) - Service & maintenance and troubleshooting for the intermediary level of faults


  • Learning Levels Topic Module Details
    Intermediate:This level includes installations about more than 1 KW and less than 5KW like water pumps, livelihood installations, and small-scale health interventions. Service and Maintenance - Solar System The process of service and maintenance of the system will be covered in this module. This is a crucial training module for technicians while following up with implementation sites. It will cover learning resources required for maintenance of the systems, spare part replacement and other requirements for sustainability, measuring instruments, tools, safety gears etc.


    Training plan and materials required for all the modules

    • Training materials:
      • Training documents: Facilitator's guide and Learner’s manual
      • Deck for training with activity and experiential-based learning and mapped videos
      • Handouts: Checklist, Templates, Guidelines, etc.
    • Training methodology: Classroom sessions, exposure visits, shadowing, VR videos, etc.

    Training Target Audience: Ecosystem Stakeholders

    • Clean Energy Enterprise, and their Technicians -Immediary level
    • Electricians
    • ITI / Polytechnic youths etc

    Methodology and approach for content development

    The methodology includes, but is not limited to review and usage of existing content, stakeholder consultations, field visits, etc..

    • Secondary research:in-depth understanding and review of the existing program documents, reports, program-specific information, any other relevant training materials, and ongoing training.
    • Stakeholder consultations: Meeting and interacting with stakeholders from across India (including the ones from SELCO’s network) to verify the information and get feedback on the process, documentation, and modules.
    • Field visits: This includes sample site visits to a few implementation sites to understand the systems and needs of the target audience.
    • Focus regions: This project is focused on creating modules that can be easily understandable and usable by anyone in the world. The document can cover examples of Indian states where SELCO has installed various technologies.
    • Review and feedback: Three rounds of review and feedback.
    • Piloting of training modules: On-field testing of the training modules and training of trainers on the training modules.
    • Updation of the training deck post piloting

    The consultant will also be required to pilot these modules with relevant stakeholders of SELCO:
          - Plan a workshop with stakeholders of SELCO and its partners to pilot the modules and training documents
    This should help in getting feedback and improving the final documents and modules.

    Deliverables

    Five training modules which include the following training materials:

    • Training decks
    • Training manuals
    • Checklists
    • Guidelines
    • Templates
    • Mapping of videos to the modules

    Deliverables

    Five training modules which include the following training materials:
       1.   Training decks
       2.   Training manuals
       3.   Checklists
       4.   Guidelines
       5.   Templates
       6.   Mapping of videos to the modules

    Deliverable Required Number Justification
    Preparation Plan 1 The preparation plan will help the consultant put down a basic plan for developing the content in tandem with the timelines for submission.
    Curriculum 1 One curriculum for Intermediary levels.
    Facilitator’s Guide 1 The facilitator guide for the facilitator to give quality Training for the learners.
    Learner’s Manual 1 A comprehensive training manual on the service and maintenance processes, the troubleshooting that can be expected in the system and the steps in addressing the same. The do’s and don'ts of maintaining the components of the system along with best practices to keep them clean and secure to be added.
    Training Decks Training Decks in such a format which can be uploaded on LMS 1 A training deck which will be a concise form of the manual to be used while training. Learning activities for practical knowledge to be included.
    Mapping of videos required for each level of training

    Note: We have few old contents available for your reference. Mostly for basic level service , maintenance and troubleshooting

    Expertise Required

    • Agency/ Individual with an experience in content development and assignment writing.
    • Technical knowledge and good understanding of solar energy/technology is mandatory
    • Experience in the compilation of technical information is preferable
    • Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
    • Excellent expertise in making training content

    Selection Criteria

    The technical proposal will be evaluated based on the following general areas:
        1. Agency/ Consultant experience in the field of assignment
        2. Understanding of the aims and objectives
        3. The qualifications and relevant experience of the personnel.
        4. The financial proposal will be evaluated on the basis of expertise, cost, lead time, and proposed payment terms.
        1.

    Payment Terms & Conditions

    S.No Milestone Instalment
    1 Signing of the contract 25% of value
    2 Submission of an outline based on mapping/discussions 25% of value
    3 1st draft review and review document submission 25% of value
    4 Submission of all related documents and final content and submission of invoice. 25% of value

    The above points are intended to help in making the learning more holistic which helps in creating a set of modules, decks, etc. Hence, understanding the process of creating these programs, bottlenecks around the same, and ways on how to operationalise it will be critical***It is recommended that the consultant depute one representative with documentation and project management skills to be stationed at SELCO Foundation office in Bangalore during the duration of this project to work closely for this project.The consultant’s representative will have to follow SELCO’s working hours and holidays during the period that they work from the SELCO office. . The modalities can be further discussed and finalised at the time of signing the contract.

    Interested consultants / organisations, with relevant experience (please include samples and/or references of previous similar work as proof of experience) and based out of India are requested to reach out with a detailed proposal giving a brief on the methodology and the process they will uptake for this project, including budgets (with break-ups and explanation), timelines and milestones and submit proposal to https://forms.gle/9r4TNWC7HQtL1mYH7 on or before 25th June’23

    For further clarification, please write to procurement@selcofoundation.org

    Annexure 1-

    Training Contents Should cover the following points :

    Details Content: Service & Maintenance for Solar PV System
    Target Audience Clean Energy Enterprises
    Technicials
    Electricians
    ITI / VTIs students
    Delivery Model In-Person Training (Training Materials + Videos)
    On-line through LMS (Training Materials + Videos)
    Content Service & Maintenance contents are to be designed as per category of Solar PV system faults. The details are as follows -
    Solar PV Module -
       - Problem Identification like faulty connection
       - Troubleshooting a PV Module: Inspection of Connections, Cabling, Junction Box, Diode
        - Solar Panel-Loose Connection in MC4 Connector
        - Solar Panel - Hotspot ( rare issue)
        - Earthing from Solar PV Module Side
        - How to Check Performance of the Module (Output Parameters: Voltage Current)
    Battery -
        - Identification of common issues
        - Battery-Self Discharge Issue
        - Faulty connection
        - Corrosion at the terminal
        - Capacity Loss
        - Backup issue
    Inverter -
        - PCB Board Burnt
        - SMPS Card Burnt
        - IGBT Bard Burnt
        - Faulty Earthing
        - Display Card Burnt
        - Inverter Voltage Instability
        - Identification of common issues and replacement of spare parts
    Earthing -
        - Lightning Arrestor
        - Identification of common issues
        - Type of Earthing and common issues
    Charge Controller -
        - PCB Board Burnt
        - Fuse Burnt and replacement
    The faults can be categorised into DC and AC based system or system sizes
    Note : The on-boarded consultant is to interact with the SF team members and our partners to get a better understanding and categorisation of intermediary level of technical issues for service & maintenance.
        - Troubleshooting and solution for the intermediary level of faults
        - Do’s and Don’t / Safety
        - Tools requirement for the troubleshooting and solution
        - Service & Maintenance to avoid intermediary level of faults
        - Service & Maintenance schedule
        - A checklist for the learners to follow for the service and maintenance of the system
        - A set of guidelines the technicians need to follow
        - Good practices
        - Mapping of the category of personnel required for service , maintenance and troubleshooting - experience of service associates
    Relevant Videos / Films for the target audience To be mapped out for the training Suggestion for VR videos for trainings