D.Ing. / The effective management of technology and new product development in a high technology small to medium enterprise associated with a large corporation with specific reference to the development of solar photovoltaic water pumps is investigated in this study. Innovative product and the development thereof have already become this century's battleground. The availability of information to all and the ease of communication have contributed to changing the battleground. Small organizations and companies can now also participate in high technology environments, different from the past. Technology management and new product development are subjects that are thoroughly studied, discussed and understood in larger corporations (LCs) and multinational enterprises (MNEs). It would appear that the same cannot always be said when it comes to small to medium high technology enterprises. The following research questions can be asked: • How does the current body of knowledge (regarding technology and new product development) influence and impact on technology and new product development in a small to medium enterprise? • How does the interface and interaction between various small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and SMEs and other large corporations impact on new product development in a small to medium enterprise? • How does a small to medium enterprise cope with relatively limited resources when attempting to develop a new product? • How does the informal nature of a small to medium enterprise impact on new product development? • Does a small to medium enterprise use a structured process to manage new product development? As SMEs become more prominent role players in technology intensive industries, answers to the above questions will strengthen the SME in the relevant areas and enhance the role that SMEs will play in the future. To answer the research questions the study comprises: • an applicable literature survey in the areas of technology management and new product development, • an investigation into the business environment and interaction a typical SME encounters during new product innovation including resource management, • the development of an alternative model for the new product development (NPD) process in an SME, • an industry acceptability survey of the proposed alternative model and • a case study (photovoltaic water pump system) of the development of a new product, mapped onto the developed alternative NPD process. A study of the literature and own experience have shown: • a lack of addressing the above questions and the impact thereof and • a lack of practical and appropriate guidelines to implement technology management and ensure repetitive successful innovative new product development (NPD) in small to medium high technology enterprises. The author suggests a reduced complexity NPD process model, which takes cognisance of intangibles such as the chaotic interaction between various stages and tasks within the NPD process, informal decision making and natural information feedback mechanisms and illustrate why an SME that observes a given structural discipline displays an inherent advantage over large corporations and multinational enterprises. The model is exposed to a limited scope industry survey and applied to a case study (development of a photovoltaic water pump powered by sunlight). The acceptability survey, although limited, suggests that industry supports the hypotheses on which the development of the proposed alternative new product development process is based. The proposed management process was mapped onto the case study to ascertain whether it is practical. The application of the proposed management process to the case study resulted in further insight into possible alternative methods of reporting on new product development work. A complete photovoltaic water pump system as a new product emanated from the case study with significant marketability.

No description available.

Irrigation is a well established procedure on many farms in western Canada and is practiced on various levels around the world. It allows diversification of crops, while increasing crop yields. However, typical irrigation systems consume a great amount of conventional energy through the use of electric motors and generators powered by fuel. / The overall objective of this research was to determine the feasibility of using photovoltaic (PV) modules to power a water pump for a small-scale drip irrigation system in Montreal (Quebec, Canada). The study involved field observations, as well as computer simulations of global solar radiation and PV electrical output. / Field observations involved a summer and winter installation of two amorphous silicon 42 W PV modules, directly connected to a 12 V surface water pump. The parameters monitored were voltage, current, back-of-panel temperature, pressure, and flow. These observed parameters were used to determine PV electrical output and volume of water pumped. Site latitude, elevation, and panel tilt were applied to the solar radiation and PV electrical output models, along with the following meteorological data: daily average, maximum, and minimum temperatures, and global solar radiation. / Daily solar radiation prediction showed a linear correlation of 0.69 with the observed daily values, over the years 2000 to 2005. The correlation coefficient was improved to 0.91, when 7 day moving averages of both the observed and predicted solar radiation data were used. PV electrical output and volume of water pumped were monitored between August 2005 and May 2006. Both the power and water output observations were less than expected. However, the predicted daily PV electrical output ranged from 1.0 MJ d-1 in the summer to approximately 0.6 MJ d-1 in the winter. As expected, an increase in power caused an increase in the volume of water pumped.

Thesis (MTech (Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2005 / Potable water, and especially the accessibility to it, is an essential part of everyday life. Of particular note, is the challenge that residents of remote rural African villages face in order to gain access to this basic requirement. Specifically, the rural areas in the Northern Cape (Province north of Cape Town) region in South Africa is one such example that illustrates this problem very well. In order to address the requirements for drinkable water, various types of water pumping technologies have been used. Up to now, the two competing water pumping systems, diesel and photovoltaic (PV), have been the primary technologies deployed in selected sites in the Northern Cape. The manual data collection of water pumping system data in the Northern Cape is fraught with impracticalities such as travel costs and requirements for skilled personnel. Therefore, as a preliminary step to accelerate development and testing, a local experimental laboratory PV water pumping rig was set-up within the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Cape University of Technology. A short-term analysis was performed over a period of three weeks on the rig and the experimental results indicated the following: array efficiency of 16.3%, system efficiency of 15.0% and an average system efficiency of 1.47%. However, the results do indicate that long-term monitoring of PV water pumping systems can be suitable in serving to determine dynamic system performance and system life cycle costs. The purpose of this project is two-fold - firstly, to present the results on the work done on the experimental PV system.

Solar Irrigation Pumps (SIPs) are used to pump (ground and surface) water to irrigate farm lands. In a country with a historical mismatch of energy supply and demand, and almost 120 million families dependent on earnings from agriculture (Prachi Salve, 2014), SIPs offer great prospects. Unlike electric and diesel pumps – dominating the market till today – SIPs have almost zero marginal costs. This leads to extra crop production at negligible costs and also generation of electricity when not being used for pumping. Due to almost zero emissions, it simultaneously addresses the issue of climate change hence bringing prosperity to the population at all levels.SIPs are a new phenomenon in India and due to the comparatively1 high capital costs, SIPs require subsidies to make them affordable for a farmer. Support in the form of subsidies has been given to around 15,000 farms in the whole country. By introducing solar pumps on a subsidy scheme in 2009-2010, Rajasthan has become the pioneer state of India. Since then numerous solar pumps have been deployed and farmers have gained experience with their usage. These farmers appear to be happy with the functioning of the pumps; 95% of the farmers, who gained enough knowledge to answer the question, say that the pump works better than their diesel or electric pump. A surprising finding is that the project cost per pump is getting higher while the pumps are getting cheaper. This means that the government is using more money to run the project. To find the reasons for the rising project costs and to find a way to decrease them, further research is needed. If the project cost could be decreased more pumps could be supplied with the same amount of subsidy.It was also found that the SIPs were not successful in replacing the electric and diesel pumps. The diesel and electric pumps had more horse power (hp) so were able to pump more water resulting in irrigation of more land in the same amount of time. Farmers expressed they could fully switch to SIPs when more powerful pumps were supplied.Because the present SIPs are off grid systems, it is not possible to sell the excess electricity that is not needed for pumping water. Because there are no marginal costs, there is no incentive for switching off the machines either. The consequence is excessive pumping of water leading to groundwater depletion. An important improvement would be to connect these pumps to the electricity grid. The possibility to earn some money with delivering energy would probably be a good reason to stop needless pumping.The subsidy program that was in place in Rajasthan had an 86% capital subsidy (the farmer had to pay only 14% of the price of SIP). With the available money only 10,000 pumps per year could be supplied (Dr. Dinesh Kumar Goyal, 2013). When the subsidy per pump is decreased more pumps could be deployed and it was shown that even with a lower subsidy getting a SIP will still be attractive.One of the points of improvement for a quick roll out of SIPs might be found in the way these pumps are financed. Pumps have a high capital cost and are currently financed by 70-90% capital subsidies of the government. The amount of total subsidy is limited and so with a high percentage of subsidy a small amount of pumps are deployed by this subsidy. These subsidies could be dramatically reduced when a loan/lease product would be put in place. Without a bank loan farmers are unable to pay the major part of the capital cost of the pump. Offering a bank loan is a win-win situation for the farmers and the people of India, represented by the government. With these pumps farmers are able to sell electricity to the grid and earn extra income or they can sell water to other farmers for a price below the price of current diesel pumping. With this income they could pay off the loan in 7 years and earn a reasonable income. The people of India will not only benefit by having to pay less for subsidies, they will also benefit from less greenhouse gas emissions as solar has almost zero emissions compared to mainly coal based electricity pumps and diesel pumps.SIPs supplying electricity can have a big effect on grid stability. Hence, in chapter 6 the question of grid stability was raised. Under what conditions can the Indian grid deal with a large amount of electricity injected from SIPs. India currently has 70% of the electricity produced from coal power plants while 3% comes from Nuclear power plants (Trading Economics, 2011a). These sources have a response time of several hours which is not quick enough to respond to fluctuations in the demand of energy by for example households, or a change in production by other sources, for example solar. The present sources should be partly replaced by quick response sources like the renewable sources and gas turbines. Currently 6% of the installed capacity is a gas power plant (Central Electricity Authority, 2015) but this percentage should be increased. Also other solutions should be implemented, such as developing storage of energy and more interconnections between grids of states and other countries.Since the idea is that SIPs would not use electricity from the grid anymore unlike electric pumps, 25% of electricity currently used from the grid by agriculture will be less. The current electric pumps only get electricity for certain hours a day and are used to balance the grid, only at times of low electricity use of other users, farmers will get electricity. When the electric pumps are replaced by SIPs that do not use electricity from the grid the balancing function that the electric pumps currently fulfil will no longer be present. Having no experience with SIPs connected to the grid so far, it will be difficult for the state load dispatch centres, which manage the grid, to schedule the expected load. Hence, pilots should be set up to find out how these pumps are used throughout the day so that in the future these loads can be predicted. In Gujarat the solar installed capacity could easily be a fivefold without having to invest in extra capacity of quick responsive sources, since enough installed capacity of gas turbines is already in place but currently not used. Extra investment would be needed in the grid in order to be able to transmit so much electricity over the grid from the (distributed) solar plants.Solar irrigation pumps, when implemented correctly, can not only lead to much cheaper irrigation for farmers but also less groundwater depletion and a source of extra income. Solar pumps can lead the way to more prosperity for the Indian people, but new guidelines and plans have to be made by the government to realise this potential. Without policy changes as described in this thesis SIPs benefit a small number of lucky farmers at the expense of the larger whole (wasting public money and groundwater).