UC Davis Blum Center for Developing Economies

Posted on August 15, 2012 After collecting the data from the Rushaki and District-recommended sites, we went back to Byumba and spent the last part of Monday and the better part of Tuesday giving lessons on alternators and electric machines, safety issues and ballast loads, turbine design and penstock sizing, and how to perform a comprehensive economic comparison of different small energy-system options. Briefly discussed AC/DC generation and transmission, using induction motors as generators (for a great manual on this, look up Nigel Smith!), but unfortunately didn’t get a chance to cover pumps-as-turbines. Tools included HOMER for economic modelling (with some sample models and an exercise for them), various design manuals (village power, various Practical Action/ITDG publications) and a bit of turbomachinery theory. Between these, seeing Christophe’s site, and performing site surveys, I think they’ve got a good starting point for thinking through the various elements of pote...

When you are a teacher it's probably a good idea not to have obvious favorites, but I think it's okay to have favorite names... Here are some of my lovely kiddos with what I consider to be some of the best names ever!   This is Frank, but because native Nyanja speakers tend to pronounce R as L, it comes off as Flank. Or Flankie. Sometimes I go up to him and say, "Flank!" because that is technically his name here, and in return I get a smile like this.       This is Aaron, you've met him before, he's the coolcat baby with dreads. But his name is also adorable, they enunciate very well here so Aaron is pronounced like Ahhh.Ron. AhpauseRon.    Speeway, Speeway, Speeway. Your name is so cool and you are so cool, and I am 9 years older than you and definitely not as cool. Speeway. (I just found out that it is actually spelled like Sipiwa, but my spelling of her name is how we say it!)  Blessings. I have never met someone so aptly na...

At a near half-way point for Bryan and myself here in Zambia, we are beginning to really take a look into the long-term plan of SMART Light, all the while reflecting on our time here so far. This week we have really moved full steam ahead in meeting with local NGO’s during the day, getting to better know our team at Disacare, and actually going out into local communities and meeting with residents. The visits to the communities, or "compounds" as they call it, have been very interesting in that we are actually seeing what a night in the compound can be like. This is a great opportunity to show the SMART Llight, and gather market research. Photo courtesy Edward Silva. Prospective Lusaka customers trying out the SMART Light. In addition, from a business perspective, seeing the consumer in their own environment really gives us a lot of information about how to position the SMART Light effectively. We have also been able to meet with some local organizations, and some la...

Posted on August 15, 2012 Following the trip to Shyira (Wednesday), we lodged in Musanze and spent Thursday morning planning community surveys and going over some system-related information to learn while in the community (preferred electric load schedules, for instance). While performing community/site surveys, we stayed in Byumba, Gicumbi. Although it is possible to cut eastward to Byumba from Musanze, it was quickest to go Musanze-Kigali-Byumba via buses, so Thursday afternoon and evening  were spent traveling. On Friday morning, we made our way out to the first site of interest, the Nyakeru river in Rushaki.  From Byumba, we went to Maya via bus, then took motos from Maya to Rushaki center.  To our surprise, there was electrification here!  Turns out, a European Commission/USAID/MININFRA project a few years back installed a 45kW system nearby on a larger river.  However, it is not enough to supply all of the villages nearby, and villagers reporte...

Posted on August 15, 2012 Note well – When you meet with officials interested in hydropower development in their district, you might go directly from a formal meeting to the field!  On Monday morning (Aug 13) we met with some Gicumbi District representatives at the office in Byumba, including the Executive Secretary and an EWSA official.  After discussing the idea of training locals to develop their own small systems, and talking a bit over how the UC-Davis/NUR-Butare/Gicumbi relationship might look in the future, they decided that we should see some potential sites immediately — so we all piled into a Land Rover and made our way to two sites. We performed basic head/flow surveys of both sites (Rusumo/Gisiza and Kajero), and met some of the sector officials interested in potentially connecting to power from these sites.  Both had significant head  for being smaller sites, and are near enough to clusters of homes or town centers for our purposes! Rusumo/Gisi...

As noted in my previous post, this has been a hard week but this morning I woke up to find out that three more of our orphans have gotten sponsored. This is such good news, and brings a little bit more balance to the week on a whole. Life here is very challenging, but there are still so many things to smile about:  This is Aaron, he is two and already has dreads, such a cool cat. Aaron is very shy at first, but he and I have become good pals, it is now a daily ritual for me to pick him up and tickle him silly, as seen here :)  This is Nathan and Blessings, they are cousins and love to play keep away soccer with me. They are both incredibly sweet and funny.  Photo bomb! The kids all love to be photographed. Angela and Angel. Angel is Mary's one year old grandchild who comes to school and stays on our backs while we teach. She is possibly the cutest baby in the world.

Posted on August 15, 2012 On Wednesday the 8th, we started early to meet with the Director of the Energy Development Division of EWSA in Kigali.  He also responded positively to the idea of using small locally-built systems and encouraged us to continue our work. From his previous time in Rwanda, Kyle knew of a young man who developed his own picohydroelectric system for his village, using homemade/salvaged parts and some serious dedication.  His umudugudu (Shyira) is very remote, but given the nature of this trip it was definitely worthwhile seeing. Furthermore, we could use this site as a training site to teach site-surveying to the interns, and to get a practice run in before heading to the prospective communities. So directly from the EWSA office, we went down to Nyabagogo (the main-but-not-centrally-located bus depot in Kigali) and took a bus to Musanze.  After dropping some bags at a friends residence in Musanze, it was a bone-jarring and beautiful 1.5 hou...