Company Plans Pedal-Powered Battery "Grid" for Tanzania

Tag : Battery Generator


As rich countries struggle to reduce the amount of gigawatts theyconsume, residents of places like Karagwe in Tanzania can't plug asingle light into a single plug to draw a single kilowatt.
With no grid infrastructure coming to the region anytime soon, anAmerican company and an African NGO are teaming up to bring lightto the region by charging battery-powered lights with a moddedrecumbent bicycle generator from Nepal.
Their idea is simple: a charging station operator pedals thegenerator for about six hours to charge a 12-volt battery. This bigbattery charges 8 to 10 smaller battery/LED light gadgets, whichare then rented to people now using kerosene lamps to see at night,an approach with serious health and safety risks.
"We put these charging stations in throughout the district, asa sort of grid, then each of these charging stations supportsaround 200 lights that serve as a rental center within thatarea," says Dissigno's Gary Zieff, a former Shell employee turned sustainabilityadvocate.
The pedal-power project is part of a growing movement to createwhat is called appropriate technology for the developing world. Instead of trying to shoehorn techdesigned for people with access to cheap, grid electrical power,this new brand of engineers and companies are trying to developsolutions for people living on a few dollars a day.
Companies, like Potenco or d.light design , and non-profits like Engineers Without Borders are all coming up with new ways of bringing accessible power andlighting to poor areas of the globe.
It sounds easy, but it's difficult to get first-world engineers tounderstand the limitations and needs in these far-flung locations.For that local knowledge, companies like Dissigno turn tonon-governmental organizations operating in the area.
"We're a bunch of white guys in California. what do we knowabout the problems of living and trying to survive in Tanzania'srural areas?" Zieff said. "We really rely heavily on ourNGO partner."
KADERES, Dissigno's NGO partner, has established medical clinicsand a microfinance center in Karagwe.