Dr Izael Da Silva
22 October 2007
analysis
It is a wide known fact that more than 90% of our rural population has no access to modern types of energy such as electricity. This has a serious impact in the lives of so many Ugandans because not having electricity they have no access to proper lighting as they use paraffin to power "tadoobas."
They have no possibility of preserving food in fridges or pump safe water. They have no power to charge their mobiles nor have access to television or radio, unless they are ready to spend a good percentage of their income to buy dry cells or to charge batteries.
Worse of all, they cannot have income generating activities such as hair salon, video hall, grain milling, battery charging, welding, etc.
It also hinders their living standards the fact that without electricity there is vaccine in the health centres, no light or computers in the schools and modern communication such as internet and faxes are a still a dream.
Some of the villages without power are close to all season rivers whose amount of water flowing and head could very well be used to generating their own electricity. This would be a dream come true as they could have improve greatly their living standards and in the medium term to be lifted from the pit of poverty.
'Pico Hydro' is a term used to describe small hydropower systems with a power output of up to 5KW. These are being successfully used for rural electrification in an increasing number of regions around the world. Despite their small size, pico-hydro systems can generate AC electricity safely and reliably 24 hours per day and also be used to drive mechanical machinery.
With careful load management, more than 100 homes can be connected over a distance of at least one kilometre from the generator. The small scale of the schemes means that there are a very large number of suitable sites, the installation work can be undertaken by the local community and the equipment can easily be transported to even the most remote locations.
Furthermore, many scheme components can already be purchased in local markets. The large number of beneficiaries and the low installation costs can make the scheme affordable for even for some of the poorest families.
What misses thus is the technology of harvesting this hydro-power by the use of pico-hydro turbines. Unfortunately nobody in Uganda is prepared to build pico-hydro systems.
It is against this background that the Centre for Research in Energy and Energy Conservation - CREEC, with the support of the Private Sector Foundation and GTZ - Energy Advisory Project (EAP), has organised a Technology Transfer course in Pico-Hydro Power Systems. It went from 24th to 30th September in Makerere University - Faculty of Technology.
The participants were from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA), GTZ, Gatsby Trust, Konserve Energy, Centre for Technological and Environmental Solutions, Victoria Engineering, Power Control Ltd, CREEC, etc.
The aim of this course is to create capacity in Pico-Hydro. The facilitators were from UK. They have more than 15 years of experience in designing, manufacturing and implementing Pico-Hydro schemes in Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa. The idea is now to implement one site, most probably in Mbale and from there establish a replication system to give a wider range of rural communities access to this kind of technology.
Funds are available for supporting this kind of initiative. The World Bank via the Energy for Rural Transformation programme has empowered REA to provide grants towards investment capital.
Interested parties are invited to visit the website of REA and EAP to gather information on how to apply. CREEC is also a stakeholder in the process as it can do works on research, training and consultancy in this specific field.
The writer is a specialist in power systems, renewable energies and rural electrification initiatives
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