Students At Seattle University Power Up Rural African Village [Video]
Seattle University students, working with the non-profit organization KiloWatts for Humanity, have designed a micro-grid to help people living in a rural community in Africa.
The students are part of Seattle University’s Electrical Engineering program and have spent the last year involved in a project to bring power to a small African village.
While major African cities have a normal power grid, it is usually not viable to extend that grid to the outlying, small rural communities. Working with the non-profit organization KiloWatts for Humanity, the students designed a micro-grid that powers the rural village, after they have spent years in the dark.
Seattle University students power village in Africa: https://t.co/dCDwQYpqzI @AlexRozierK5 pic.twitter.com/rpj9ax88cv
— KING 5 News (@KING5Seattle) May 30, 2016
It’s hard for most of us to imagine, but more than 1.1 billion people in the world live without power, many of them in small rural communities like the one in question.
Muhuru Bay Micro-grid from Seattle University on Vimeo.
Being so close to the equator, the Kenyan village normally experiences an early nighttime, and villagers have been forced to use kerosene lamps, which are not only expensive but also dangerous.
Senior student Natalie Swope explained, “This project is putting an emphasis not only on micro-grid design but making sure micro-grids around the world are sustained.”
“So we monitor what is going on post implementation which is really important for making sure that everything keeps running and people have access to electricity and there is a prolonged life of the project.”
The students have created a special device, called the Data Acquisition System, that allows them to monitor the micro-grids in real time to ensure everything is working properly. They don’t just stay in the lab, either; last week, one of the students visited Africa to help out the village when something went wrong.
King5 quotes senior student George Goldsmith as saying, “We noticed an anomaly in some of the on-site data in Kenya that we were watching and I was able to contact the on-site manager and walk him through solving the problem thanks to the information that we found.”
Not only is the project helping people in remote rural communities, it is also having a profound effect on many of the students involved, meaning several of them have been able to travel to Africa to see their work helping the people up front and personal.
“I’ve learned so many life and professional lessons from KiloWatts for Humanity and Seattle University made that possible for me,” Swope said. “I really think this engineering program is unlike any other engineering program.”
The Seattle University students also won the grand prize in the 2014 NCEES Engineering Award for Connecting Professional Practice and Education. They received the top award for their submission, Micro-grid System for a Wind and Solar Farm Located in Rural Kenya.
In that project, the students worked as a team, together with faculty, professional engineers, and other professionals, to design a hybrid wind- and solar-power micro-grid system that provides electricity to a school and the surrounding community of Muhuru Bay in Kenya.
Villagers can bring their cellphones to a kiosk to recharge them at a small fee and can also rent battery kits that will allow them to plug in lights so they can experience electric light in their homes for the first time.
As mentioned on a Vimeo video page, the project “highlights the commitment of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department to support projects that create engineers for just and humane world.”
To find out more information about KiloWatts for Humanity and the work that is currently being performed, readers can visit their website.
[Photo via Vimeo]
