Passion for engineering

Amy Louise Wright on the 60–year old Ilala ferry which crosses Lake Malawi once a week. Originally constructed by Yarrow Shipbuilders near Glasgow and delivered to Malawi in 1951, the Ilala gets to within 200m of the shore of Ruarwe where passengers disembark into a smaller boat

A visit to Africa inspired Amy Louise Wright to become an engineer and provide infrastructural solutions to the developing world. She tells Ingenia how, with the help of a Royal Academy of Engineering Advanced Leadership Award, she was able to set up an organisation of student engineers who developed a new programme of electrification in rural Malawi.

My love of Africa was ignited when I was 17 years old. In 2007, I travelled with a small group of students from my sixth form to work in an orphanage in the Kingdom of Lesotho, a small and mountainous landlocked country surrounded by South Africa. During this four-week trip in the middle of Lesotho’s winter (where highland temperatures often fall to -18°C), I was struck by how the widely used corrugated iron huts that were family homes offered little protection from the devastatingly cold conditions in winter and the searingly hot temperatures of the summer.

It seemed obvious to me that this building material was unsuitable, as it has no insulating properties, and that there had to be an alternative. This was the first instance that I found myself applying my practical nature to a real-life problem. As soon as I had returned home, I began searching for low-cost sustainable building materials. As I did so, I realised that, in essence, solving problems is the definition of engineering. In that moment, I decided that I wanted to become an engineer.

I went on to graduate with a Masters Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Nottingham in 2012.

In 2009, while I was still a student, I qualified to stand in front of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s interview panel and apply for an Engineering Advanced Leadership Award. I used my experience in Lesotho to explain that I held a passion for working in the developing world and that I sought funding to enable me to return to Africa and to solve real-life problems and drive change in what modest and useful ways I could. I was delighted to be granted the funding, but finding the right opportunity to make use of it proved more difficult than I had imagined. There were a lot of existing projects where participants were expected to pay thousands of pounds to volunteer, offering more of a tourist experience than a chance to use my skills.

RUARWE AND PHUNZIRA

I contacted an organisation called Engineers for Africa who put me in touch with a woman called Rosa Nissim, the project founder and manager of the charity Phunzira.

Phunzira is a UK-based charity that was founded in 2009 to help impoverished people in the north of Malawi to access education and health care. The charity staffs a community centre in Ruarwe, which opened in October 2011 and contains a library and three classrooms to provide free secondary school education and evening classes, teaching skills ranging from mathematics to agriculture. There are also plans to provide a computer room with eight laptops. The centre is located next to a primary school and a health centre, which is the only medical facility in the region for several miles. People often travel for hours to receive treatment. Rosa explained that Ruarwe is an extremely remote fishing village, and apart from the new community centre, the village was a ‘blank canvas’ in terms of resources and facilities.

In 2011, I used my EALA award to spend three weeks in Ruarwe. I was deeply moved by the generosity of those we met. The residents have a fierce determination to survive and make the best life for their families in a devastatingly poor area. There is no infrastructure; there are no roads, no power grids or gas, and no running water. The only access into Ruarwe is via the steamboat ferry, ‘Ilala’, which provides an unreliable once-weekly visit.

Electricity is largely taken for granted in more economically developed countries, but the absence of energy provision for rural communities in developing countries perpetuates poverty and a lack of basic necessities. It is estimated that only 7.5% of the total population of Malawi have access to electricity, with the figure being as low as 0.8% for the rural population.

I spent my time in the village speaking to local people about their daily lives. I considered how I could use my experience and knowledge as a trainee engineer to benefit them in some way. After speaking to the village chief and other members of the community, it became obvious that lighting powered by electricity would greatly improve their quality of living. In a village with no electricity source and where the residents do not have enough money to pay for batteries and torches, most residents go to bed when the sun sets at 5pm, and rise with the dawn at 6am.

BACK IN THE UK

After three weeks in Malawi, I returned to the UK with a better understanding of life in the village, and with a determination to use my developing engineering skillset to improve the lives of the residents of Ruarwe. It was obvious that electricity would be hugely beneficial to all in the village. With lights, the community centre could provide a place for people to learn and use the library to complete studies in the evening. The health centre could be open for longer, and a small fridge would allow storage of vaccinations: all this in an area where the lack of access to medicine means that even simple infections are often fatal.

I researched case studies of small lighting projects in rural and developing countries, and spoke with another member of my EALA cohort, Rebecca Wooding, who had installed a small-scale hydropower scheme in Uganda. By making the benefits of rural electrification into the subject of my final year dissertation, I was able to undertake further research that showed that micro-hydropower would also be a suitable and sustainable technology for Ruarwe using the local streams as a renewable resource. There would be no pollution and, if installed correctly, the running and maintenance costs would be minimal.

NUSTREAM Team 1 pictured in July 2012 on an excursion to a nearby village. We were using a map that had been drawn in 1986, and was out of date. We got lost and these local children rescued us and pointed us back to Ruarwe. From l-r: Amy Wright, Patrick Sharkey, Annie Goldie and Georgia Thompson. Photograph taken by Gavin Keen

NUSTREAM

I realised that the task I was undertaking was huge; I would need the assistance of a team. I sent out an appeal throughout the Department of Engineering at the Unversity of Nottingham and managed to recruit a team of twenty-five students. The name NUSTREAM (Nottingham University Student Team for Renewable Energy Aiding Malawi) was devised as an operating name for the group. We worked throughout the entire year to design the mechanical and electrical systems required to generate and transmit electricity, as well as the civil scheme that would need to direct the water and house the mechanical systems.

As a student group with no financial backing, it became apparent that many of the materials we needed were not readily available in Malawi, and it was becoming expensive to source and import what was required for the scheme, in addition to the labour costs for construction. In this time of economic uncertainty (particularly in the construction business), financing the project proved difficult. However, we were fortunate to receive vital sponsorship from The Impact Campaign Nottingham, The Nottingham Enrichment Fund, The University Department of Engineering, The University Department of Civil Engineering, photobook printers Blurb, and Sir Robert McAlpine. The generosity of these sponsors made the project a reality.

Among the first challenges we faced were finding out how to ensure the hydropower scheme could remain sustainable and pay for staff members, running and maintenance, while providing the power for free. Research led us to the Energy Kiosk concept, where batteries are charged in a central location and then rented out for a small fee to power LED bulbs. This provides lighting to village houses and spreads the benefits of rural electrification widely, as well as generating an income to enable the scheme to operate. We received some excellent help from e.quinox, a team of students from Imperial College London who have worked for several years installing Energy Kiosks in developing countries – see Ingenia 49.

PLANNING TRIP

We travelled to Ruarwe to start implementing the project in June 2012. Three other students and I and one other volunteer embarked on an epic journey to Ruarwe that took days travelling by air, road and finally by water.

For the planned reservoir and hydropower structures, we had to identify locations that caused the minimum amount of disruption to the local landowners who used the hillsides for growing cassava (the main food source that is grown on every available piece of land).

We met with the locally formed hydropower committee who discussed the alternative options for the electricity scheme based on the research we had compiled. After we left the village, we travelled to the larger town of Mzuzu to research the availability and cost of building materials.

As a result of this trip, we decided to change to a hydro-solar powered hybrid solution. This would allow the reduction of water available in the summer months to be counterbalanced by the increase in the availability of solar power. Similarly, the regular flow of water in the winter months would prevent the total reliance on solar power.

We also established that the town would be well served with the Energy Kiosk battery rental system, which could initially be set up to run exclusively on solar power until the hydropower element of the project was completed. We placed an order with a battery company BBOXX.

The completed reservoir has been reinforced and signed off during trip three, it is ready for use during trip four in August 2013

CONSTRUCTION TRIP

A second team of students travelled to Ruarwe in August 2012, to construct a storage reservoir for the hydropower scheme, as well as to install 500 watts of solar panels and provide 45 batteries for use by the villagers. The team also set the works in motion for the construction of flow channels into the reservoir and a settling tank.

Labourers were employed from the local community to work on the construction scheme, providing a vital source of income. The reservoir was completed in stages, with the walls constructed using stone that was sourced and dressed locally.

Three local residents were selected to run the Energy Kiosk. They were trained in the operation and maintenance of the batteries and in keeping the accounts for the business.

A high point of the trip was an ‘electricity party’ held on the beach, and attended by over 150 local residents. Five ‘plug in and play’ batteries were charged using small, individual solar panels and were used to power light bulbs and a music speaker. A beach volleyball tournament was held, along with dancing and games for the children. The event achieved the intended positive publicity for the scheme in and around the village. It also demonstrated the impact that the batteries could have.

Importantly, good relationships were built with the community of Ruarwe, with the team involving the villagers in each decision and phase of development, building confidence in our commitment to the area and also confidence in our abilities. In an area where 5pm usually means bedtime, an event that included the whole community at night time was met with much enthusiasm and excitement!

Children dancing at the electricity party when the whole beach was lit with LED lightbulbs. There was music played from speakers powered by NUSTREAM’s batteries and the evening was a great success with many of the residents registering their names in a ballot to decide who would be part of the pilot scheme for the Energy Kiosk and be able to rent out the battery boxes and lights

SECOND YEAR

In June 2013, we made another visit and found that the village, local schools and the surrounding areas are using the batteries, with around 20 being charged every week. The scheme also provides a reliable source of income for the two remaining workers who are paid for by the revenue generated from the battery rental scheme. The lighting in the houses has enabled residents to enjoy reading, studying, cooking and general activities that were previously impossible after sunset and NUSTREAM has received videos and letters of thanks from the community expressing how their lives have been changed by the provision of lighting. The kiosk manager has requested 80 additional batteries, a clear indication of the success of the scheme. With the reservoir now in place, flow measurements of the streams in the area have been taken to allow us to design a suitable hydropower setup with appropriate components.

The project has not been without difficulties. Managing residents’ excitement for the provision of lighting was difficult when we had to explain that it would not come immediately. It has also been hard to get local people to take responsibility for the implementation and maintenance of the project.

Our expectations were perhaps naively optimistic. We had hoped that local people would willingly get involved in the building work and the sourcing and delivering of materials to make best use of our limited budgets. Our finances were also stretched when we had to purchase the land on which to build community buildings. We had great difficulty negotiating with landowners who demanded vast sums of money for access and change of ownership of land that, until the request was made, had little or no value.

IMPORTANT FOR STUDENTS

Taking everything into consideration, the experience has been hugely rewarding for all those involved. Feedback from the rest of the team revealed that the experience has helped to expand their appreciation of the wider world and how engineering can be used in a practical and beneficial way. Our time management and research skills have certainly been put to the test, but the biggest benefits have come from problem-solving as part of a team in a remote area where working well with others was essential to overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. We have all improved our fast decision-making. On a personal note, the trip provided me with a fantastic opportunity to develop my leadership skills on an intense project.

The team returned in August 2013 to expand the Energy Kiosk scheme by constructing a new kiosk building, supplying 50 additional batteries and providing further training in operation and maintenance. We are also planning to complete the small-scale hydropower installation. This will provide additional wattage to supply power to the community centre, and hopefully enough for the primary school. A separate solar panel will be supplied to the health centre to power lighting and a fridge for vaccinations.

Hydropower scheme in Ruarwe

SPECIFIC HYDROPOWER

The hydropower scheme in Ruarwe makes use of a number of small streams flowing down the hill to the power house building. NUSTREAM has constructed a series of channels in the hillside to direct the water flow into a reservoir. This reservoir allows the scheme to utilise the very small amount of water available to create a useful amount of power. The water volume in the reservoir rises during the day and is allowed to empty over a few hours in the evening through a penstock pipe directed onto a turbine, therefore increasing the flow of water available. The rotating turbine generates electricity through the attached generator.

The power house doubles as the Energy Kiosk for the battery scheme. The electricity generated from the hydropower system is supplemented by solar panels which provide electricity throught the day.

The Energy Kiosk battery scheme provides batteries and LED lights for rental, with the villagers paying just under 50 pence for a recharge. One charge is enough to provide lighting for up to six days. The money raised is used to maintain the hydropower scheme, which will provide free electricity to the community centre, the school and the health centre.

NUSTREAM NOW

NUSTREAM’s aim has always been to provide a sustainable solution for Ruarwe. All too often, the mentality of volunteers travelling from developed countries for short periods of time is well-meaning but not well thought out: they may end up providing remote, rural villagers, who are used to very basic conditions, with new technology that is not practicable for their needs. These installations are often abandoned, neglected or not maintained and fall into disrepair soon after the volunteers have left due to a lack of suitability and knowledge.

NUSTREAM has spent considerable time during each trip building up a relationship with the community and ensuring that they have been consulted during the design process and that they are given a solution to the problem of the lack of electricity that is appropriate for their current situation.

A small number of batteries will be offered to residents in surrounding local villages to gauge interest in the battery scheme and if this proves to be successful, research will be undertaken to look at expanding the rural electrification model into these areas. Research has already taken place into the surrounding villages for their requirement of electricity and suitability of flowing water for hydropower.

In the near future, team members remain dedicated to ensuring the existing and newly installed schemes are successful and that transition to full ownership of the people of Ruarwe takes place smoothly and gradually, using the relationships built over the last two years and the skills developed by the engineers. NUSTREAM will continue to function as an organisation, hopefully recruiting new students and financial backers for the coming years.

More information at www.nustreamonline.com