Consider Moving Beyond Power Back-Up to Alternative Power Source - Continuously Run Power From Your Solar

In an earlier post, well now almost 10 years ago, I laboured with the idea of alternative power faced with the power failures in Malawi due to insufficient power supply. I proposed in that post whilst acknowledging the energy saving philosophy adopted by the Malawi energy company then, ESCOM, that an additional step could be to proactively adopt solar energy to reach a theoretical state where energy demand would be assuaged by consumers supplying electricity too, hence not demanding more power. Well, fast forward the years the deficit still exists and the demand has actually grown as seen from the energy department's reports. The reports further indicates that the demand is only going to grow. The challenges of meeting the power demand will then only grow as seen in the graphic below adopted from the energy department in Malawi:

Energy Demand, adopted from the department of energy website

Well, seeing this, makes me ask what purpose has the biggest power demand in Malawi, and in another graphic, it shows that this is mainly for household use accounting for over 40%. Therefore the prior target on using energy server bulbs. However, this is being done with continued increase in number of households and therefore the savings earned are being cancelled out by the increasing demands on electricity. There have thus been several initiatives to address this demand, but I would like to re-examine the solar options. Despite solar energy being proven feasible the diffusion of these power source has really been mostly in off the grid areas where households have started using solar for small scale businesses such as charging phones for example. The areas facing power outages have not systematically adopted solar as a power source. Probably this could be driven by a number of reasons such as their power demands at household level not being met (hence households feeling that it is not worth it); or the cost of investment; or being overwhelmed with what it takes to set up; or just not being sure what it will bring.

I recently decided to set up solar power at my home in Lilongwe, which is in an area with access to the power grid for some household uses.

Solar Panel on the Roof of Home in Lilongwe

Battery bank and inverter for power storage and conversion to AC from DC.

Now this addresses some of my needs such as lighting and entertainment (TV and radio), but not others such, cooker, refridgerator, which draw more power at household level. Therefore, this remains work in progress. Additionally, the configuration for alternating current with the inverter, should be modified to reduce or explore its full capacity and see what it can do. Since this was installed as a packaged solution, other options have not been explored.


Aside from exploring the capacity of the solar solution, i realize that  it is installed more as a power back-up and not an alternative source of power that may be used even when utility power is on. This would require for example other models such as  residential grid tie solar power systems which I think could actually be models that could bring in balance of power as seen in other places in the world. The general idea being generating power into the national utility when the households are not using the power.  This might of course be regarded as a threat to current model of power generation where there is market guarantee for current utility company; however let's have an open mind - it could also be looked upon as a solution towards the power deficit challenge and a new business model. Having an array of independent households, generating power (AIHGEP) into the grid! Then we could have AIHGEP clusters!

However, given the complexity of getting such kind of setup as grid tie solar systems regularized, I would classify my household equipment into utility equipment and alternative power equipment, Secondly I would isolate all the equipment that require power from a utility company onto a dedicated circuit. I would then use my solar powered circuit to power all the other equipment all the time. In so doing, I will be using the household utility only for those things and freeing up more energy.

Thinking of scale, well beyond my domicile, this is easier said than done, due to various challenges, as mentioned above (legislation for AIHGEPs), but primarily to achieve the energy savings, there needs more thinking around incentives for adopting these types of circuits and some sort of coordination to reach sufficient diffusion. The initial implementation above requires a costly investment. The diffusion also requires some modeling using the principle of return on investment to really see if it's eventually going to be worth it if a coordinating body such as a utility company was to take it up as a new arm of the organization. On a household level, though, I hypothesize that individual investment of alternative power and not power backup, could generate some return on investment. The next step will be to collect actual data on this and build a model.

With the only increasing demands on power, it is important to recognize the power demand being mostly from the household level. If this is redistributed, then it may provide more power for other areas where there is demand. The feasibility of alternative power sources has been demonstrated, but it requires some level of coordination and centralization to achieve the benefits. Examples, of these efforts are being seen through micro-power generators such as the mega project in Mulanje and the the boy who harnessed the wind. Another example in response to community needs has been here. Furthermore, application for other purposes has been demonstrated through village registration, boy you should have seen the grin on the village headman's house when the lights went on! Yet, with these demonstrations, there is still that annoying step where the first choice of power implementation at least in urban and semi-urban areas, the option is a utility company. With demand of power going to the same utility company and limited power from other sources, a different thinking could be to nudge the public by providing them a second option: which would be,  "We shall give you solar power for these needs (lighting and entertainment) from some community based solar farms. - From now own, called AIHGEPs"

Making Malawi Green through Afforestation: A Need for More Coordination

Bluegum Woodlot in Kamgulitse Village, Bembeke, TA Kamenyagwaza,
 Dedza. Part of forest I have maintained over the years.

The environment has fascinated me from an early age, with an interest in trees and their role in preventing environmental degradation. This is right from when I was in primary school at Tsokamkanansi LEA where we would be assigned various extra curricular activities such as watering flower gardens before starting classes for the day. At the time I more or less was going about the activities more as a robot programmed to do the task;  one watering cane, I am done, and then jump into class. As the years progressed from standard 1 to standard 2, the day 21 January, which was then designated tree planting day was announced during the morning assembly by the head teacher then; that it will be tree planting day and as a school we would participate. I was excited, because I knew, "no classes" that day, although I wouldn't say it to my mum who was a primary school teacher there too. But I kept asking her, when 21 January will be so that I could make plans with my friends to play to our hearts content driving wire cars and playing "kick the tin", a variation of hide and seek. 21st January finally dawned, and we were ushered in some sort of order to a nearby area, opposite Tsokamkanansi LEA School to start the planting. Thinking of the plans I had made with my friends to play the day out, it was really an anxious time for me as men in black suits kept making speeches, about planting trees and why it is necessary. When the speeches came to an end, the planting started, but the gentleman who made the first speech had to plant the first tree, water and then everyone had to clap hands. I said, I can do that too, why should we clap hands? Well, then it was hooray, free for all, let the planting begin. Well, as kids we naturally made a game out of the process and started asking each other as we were planting, "iwe wadzala ingati?", - "how many have you planted", in an attempt to out-plant your friends. We soon lost count, as the trees were finished and everyone was now scrambling to head back home. About 2 years later, at that time,  there was what was called, "youth week", we were asked to go and weed the forest, using slashers. It was pretty light work, despite the sense that we were getting at that time, that it was the only option. I was however convinced from this early stage that trees are necessary part of the environment and that public institutions wanted to educate the public on this message. This message is promoted nowadays by public institutions, however, the emerging theme has been that planting is only the beginning in sustaining a tree that takes over 15 years to harvest. The message however, that trees are important seems to have sunk in many peoples minds now with various natural disasters and failings of infrastructure that may be attributed to trees that have been harvested without replanting new ones. However, this 15 year, time seems to be achieved immediately after planting the trees as there seems limited follow up in making sure that the trees mitigate the current challenges. Some people, have diminished the value of planting trees as futile, because no-one follows up. Well maybe it is a strategy with the hope, that "some will survive" and eventually we shall have trees. As one writer, said, "hope is not a strategy", there is need for some level of organization. First, people have realized that planting trees is important. This is good. Then the next question, is how is the planting being done? Have the areas for afforestation been marked out? Who is monitoring the progress? And many other questions that may be posed. Well, my thoughts on the planting is to have a coordinated process that is controlled by a central office(Should be Forestry department). Well, this might already be there, however, the approach that organizations or individuals of goodwill conduct afforestation efforts is suggestive that there is lack of clarity on who initiates the planting. Therefore, the institutions should consider the following steps:

1) Actively map out the target areas for afforestation and share these with the public - the public are already enthusiastic of afforestation, show them where to plant trees. Use the modeling knowledge created from works like these on modeling Dzalanyama forest by K. Munthali.

2)  Coordinate the energy just as done in the tree planting weeks; have some people that have the goodwill to plant, to actually actively create fire breaks and other interventions to ensure that the trees grow.

3)  Mobilize competitions that could support afforestation, for example learning from the campaign of Make Malawi green with Calrsberg green, which in my view was one of the development focussed promotions ever done than some current promotions that I think could have wider developmental impact; but target individuals - consider distributing that mega prize to many people and making your product meaningful.

4)  Monitor progress being made, evaluate and give feedback. Take advantage of the knowledge created by experts in this field (a search on google scholar "Afforestation in Malawi" gives over 4,000 peer reviewed articles), implement the recommendations at scale in key affected areas. Build a learning system for afforestation that will avert these manageable issues of siltation, flooding with distal effects on some key infrastructure.

The experiences, in primary school, revealed, some sort of coordination and energized the zeal for environmental conservation in me and surely some of my friends. In retrospect, the follow up actions (youth week), and the active planning (public officials brought in the seedlings and gave guidance) demonstrated some coordination. The use of us, primary school kids, with malleable brains, well some exploitation maybe but also opportunistic from another angle - using positive youth energy, instead of going to drive my wire toy cars until my heart's content, plant some trees then go and play. The meaningful, promotions of make Malawi green with Calrsberg Green, provided me with realization, that I could take bottle tops exchange them with tree seedlings at my village forestry office and plant them at my family woodlot; a practice I maintained after the promotion, from my pocket money in Secondary school and University. Well, my experience is definitely not unique and could be useful today too. But the model done followed, while in primary school could form a basis for addressing the "follow-up" challenge of ensuring that the trees survive. More effectively though could be the suggested steps in this blog. Hope is not a strategy, let's have a plan and coordinate the current goodwill.