March 2008 Archives

Bobby Lambert, former Director of engineering relief agency RedR, recently went to Africa to explore the solar rope pump option further. Bobby is advising us with this project. Here's what he said:

Despite decades of investment in hand-pump development and in community group organisation, there remain considerable problems with delivering reliable water supply using community hand-pumps to many rural communities. Research into conventional hand-pump development continues, although technical improvements will need to be matched by developments in community ownership.

One option being examined is that of "self-supply" where individual families may be supported in developing their own water source. This could be combined with some form of community supply (an individual may be supported in developing the source, provided other community members can access it, perhaps for a small payment). Such a supply could also be used for irrigation. The rope pump is an attractive technology for this option, and a solar powered version might be of interest - as a step up from the manually operated version.

There is also considerable interest in exploring how solar power can be harnessed for drinking water. One organisation is looking at doing this for large institutions such as secondary schools and hospitals, where there would be economies of scale and more likelihood of maintenance. However, these larger scale schemes may choose more technically sophisticated options than the rope-pump.

Ben Stitt and myself have now managed to run the pump (at a very small head, or height, of water) off of a solar panel here in Bristol. We have also run the rope pump off an electric motor for a range of heads and we are currently in the process of writing up our report on the predicted requirements of a full 10m head solar powered rope pump.

After going to Malawi, I plan to carry on the research on the solar powered rope pump along with three other different research partners here at Bristol, looking at improvements to the design and modelling the system more accurately.

On another note, four Zimbabwean technicians from PumpAid, a charity supplying the hand powered rope pump in South East Africa, are coming to Bristol. We plan to build a transparent model hand powered rope pump with us that will be used to demonstrate the design on World Water Day on the 22nd of March in Trafalgar Sq.

Cai

I just met with Cai today. He's very enthusiastic and has already built a rope pump (non solar powered) with his research partner Ben Stitt at Bristol University to start testing his ideas. We now need to raise money in order to pay for the materials (solar panels, motor, etc) in Malawi so that he can build the prototype there this summer. So please do start donating now - we urgently need your support!

The photo above is of a rope pump built by our partner organisation in Argentina.

Nick