Africa Power and Light

Problem: Lack of electrical power in villages and city slums. The 1.3 billion people without electrical power are forced to go to bed early, losing much of their productive time. When their children do their homework at night, they must use kerosene lamps that emit pollution, cause respiratory distress, start fires, and commonly consume ten to thirty per cent of family income.

Solution: I have developed and built a simply maintained, easily built, inexpensive, extremely durable treadle-powered generator that can supply electricity for LED lighting in houses and shops and can also be used to charge cell phones. These generators can be used alone or in conjunction with a solar or wind generator to augment those genrators' production in the same way that peaking power plants do in developed countries, thus eliminating the need to build expensive excess capacity into the solar and wind systems. An additional use for the generator can be to provide much-needed mechanical power for grain threshers, mills, and deep-water pumps by connecting the machines to the generator with belts.

Objective: Publicize the generator; provide plans and "hands-on" training for early adopters/builders. Existing trade schools and NGOs could help identify these builders and the trade schools could help train them. Kits could be developed and provided. Micro-franchising and micro-credit would be vital for not only the generator builders and electricity users but also for people involved in associated peripheral business opportunities that could not exist without electricity.

Uniqueness of plan: Utilization of treadle power. At this time treadles are not used to power generators because of the lack of strength of existing treadle mechanisms. My generator, however, has the strength and space for up to 8 pedalers simultaneously, making it capable of providing the power needed to charge a large battery. One hour of pedaling can provide three hours of village lighting, depending, of course, on village size and the type and condition of the battery used. The pedalers can be either children or adults.

Ease of building: The generator can be built by a carpenter or mechanic using inexpensive, mostly recyled materials that are easy to find. Its materials are a used auto alternator, plywood or packing-crate wood - any kind of wood available to the area, a used auto battery, small electrical wires, and a broken car-engine block. The home and shop lighting provided can be as simple as auto dome lights with 24 LEDs in them. These can be bought on Ebay for as little as $1 each. To create a primitive, yet effective, light fixture, they can be enclosed in the blister packs they come in.

Ecological friendliness: The generator's recycled materials and lack of carbon emissions guarantee its ecological friendliness, and its ease of maintenance - moving parts are easily reached for greasing - ensures its durability.

Real-world impact: Because it is currently the lowest cost, most easily built method to provide electricity to a small area, my generator (called "Genny") could have a tremendous impact on the lives of many people. It could create jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, income, improved communications by cell-phone charging, better family life by having light at night in homes, entertainment and informational opportunities by powering radios, and most important, help children get more of out of their education because they could do their homework at night.