...And then there was light

 

 

When life is enveloped in darkness, can you dream of light at the end of the tunnel? Farmer Siddappa, who has lit up his modest dwelling in Somapura village of Karnataka’s Gadag district with a self-invented wind power unit, has proved that you can. All you need is a bit of innovation.

Less than 400 kilometers away, India’s IT hub Bangalore is grappling with a severe power crisis. Siddappa, a poor, unlettered peasant who lives in a remote rural zone that has no electricity, has harnessed the wind to generate his own power. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

“My hut was like a dark dungeon – no light would ever enter it. We had to light a kerosene lamp even during the day. And then kerosene became scarce. My children found it difficult to do their homework,” says Siddappa, explaining the motivation behind the creation of his home-grown power generation unit.

He is a minor celebrity in the area for his is the only house among 37 dwelling units here that has electricity. What’s more, Siddappa doesn’t have to pay any power bills nor does he have to suffer outages. His windmill, mounted on a tree in his farm, has blessed him with light.

Siddappa, in his 40s, has had to slog for years and deplete his savings in this voyage from darkness to light. His windmill is a true marvel. The four wings of the contraption are made of metal sheets and fixed to a tree. The wings revolve when the wind blows and, magically, light up Siddappa’s house and life. “It took me 10 years and Rs 5000 to realise my dream,” says Siddappa, clambering on to the tree to explain how his invention works.

“The government would not give power connection to a house which is so far away from the main road and stood alone in an isolated farm. There are several other lone houses in this region which are still deprived of electricity” says Siddappa’s wife, Bheemavva.

She recalls: “I would often harangue him for wasting his time. But he was single-minded in his pursuit. There were times when he wouldn’t come back home at night. He kept chipping away. We now understand why he was so obsessed.”

A power unit that sits atop an adjoining hill was Siddappa’s inspiration. He would climb up to watch the plant – it is owned by a multinational power company – and figure out how wind power really worked. Once he got the hang of things, he embarked upon his mission. To begin with, Siddappa had to find a vantage point in his farm where the wind would blow completely unhindered. His farm is located at a low altitude. Therefore, finding a windy channel was difficult. But once he chose his spot, Siddappa got down to work in right earnest.

The roof of his cowshed yielded the two metal sheets that became the four wings of his windmill. Wood and metal clamps were acquired to craft the propeller for his wind power unit. He then connected the propeller to three small wheels through a belt made of the rubber tyre of a bicycle. The main wheel of the power unit came from the tyre disc of his bullock cart.

Siddappa uses this disc to step up the rotation of the wings per minute. The dynamo attached to the wheels generates the electricity, which is then stored in a battery. To utilise this power, Siddappa has connected an inverter to the battery. From here, AC power is converted into DC.

Today Siddappa’s house and that of his brother, Yallappa, can light six 60-volt bulbs round the clock. His family can also play a tape-recorder and a radio. And when the wind is strong enough, and the plant generates additional power, the television set, too, crackles to life. Despite his remarkable invention, Siddappa continues to live in penury. His tiny ancestral house – it has a living space and a kitchen – accommodates four other people – his wife, two sons Nagananda and Chandra and daughter Ningavva.

He owns 16 acres of land – he inherited 10 acres and added 6 more to his holding – and grows crops like maize, wheat, green gram and cotton. Yet, Siddappa is never able to make enough to give himself and his dependants a comfortable existence.

But the future looks brighter than ever. “Ningavva is away for higher education. She lives with my relatives in town,” says Siddappa with a twinkle in his eyes. He is aware that his children will no longer have to contend with darkness.

Siddappa has always had a way with technology. He repairs his own tractors as well as his children’s bicycles. He even modified his one-row plough and turned it into a three-row machine. It now enables him to single-handedly do three men’s work. The illiterate Siddappa grasps theories of dynamo technology with ease although he is unable to find words to describe any of the processes and components that are involved.

To prove his inborn ability to us (though we did not ask for a demo), he fixed a one-pin electric plug to the bicycle dynamo, rotated the bicycle wheels and told us that to charge the batteries of our mobile phones. And yes, it worked!

“We farmers have to go long distances to reach our fields. If our mobile phones run out of battery power when we are there, we are left helpless. That is why I invented this technique” says Siddappa.

His brother, Yallappa says: “He used to go up the hills and carefully study the power units. Before setting up his own version of the unit, he discussed and scrutinised the technology with everyone who cared to listen. And then, one fine morning we realised that had he started working on it. We called him mad at that point of time. Today I am really proud of what he has achieved.”

Siddappa isn't done yet. He has one more grand dream. He now wants to build a hydel power unit alongside a canal that flows past his house. “The power that the windmill generates is enough for my house and my family. The hydroelectric power plant that I intend to build will be for the entire village.” India needs more of the likes of Siddappa, men who would use their native intelligence and natural resources to build power plants “for the whole nation”. The wonders of watermills

Anil P. joshi, Environmentalist, throws light on a natural solution

In our quest for electricity generation, we tend to focus on big dams without taking into account our natural resources. Millions of water streams sweep through our mountain ranges across the country – from Jammu and Kashmir to Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. We can generate a lot of electricity by setting up small watermills on these streams.

In fact, several watermills can be set up on each of these streams – the number would depend upon the gradient and volume of the water that flows down a stream. It is a low-cost and almost nil-maintenance device, making it very useful for the poor across the world.

This is certainly not a novel concept. Watermills have existed in India since the third century. The device also finds copious mention in the accounts written by several British officials like V.A. Stowell, who was the deputy commissioner of Garhwal. But, then, these watermills have usually been used mainly for the purpose of grinding and husking. Since devices run on diesel or with electricity yielded much faster returns, water mills were gradually closed down. They gave way to power or diesel-run machines.

The first innovation made on a watermill was the introduction of a metallic ball-bearing, which replaced the traditional wooden and stone axis. Power generation too started later when some people installed small turbines in place of simple wooden blades of a watermill that would rotate with the water flow of a hill stream. This helped in running a grinding machine. These upgradations have done much to alter the lifestyle and improve the standards of living of people in rural areas.

According to a rough estimate, there are 2,00,000 water mills in the Indian mountains, 40,000 in Nepal and 25,000 in Pakistan. There are over 70,000 water mills (locally called gharats) in Uttarakhand alone and of these 60 per cent are still functional.

The cost of a metallic turbine has escalated because of a steep hike in steel prices. But, this doesn’t pinch people because the government of India provides a subsidy to the tune of 70 per cent of the cost of a watermill. We, at the Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (Hesco), have helped people set up multipurpose watermills not only in Uttarakhand but across all the Indian hill states. Once the people begin to contribute their share of the cost of setting up a watermill, the government releases its funds enabling the villagers to set up a turbine in a watermill.

On an average, a watermill generates 3.5 KW power every hour. This is enough to light an entire village round the clock. There are no power cuts in villages lit by watermills. Moreover, a watermill is environmentally friendly – it prevents air pollution by eliminating carbon emission. Thus these mills contribute towards environment damage control. The villagers also use the watermills for grinding, oil-expelling and husking while they can also start small businesses like bee-keeping, fruit-processing, floriculture and fisheries by constructing small ponds near the watermill. Each villager is supposed to contribute Rs 10 per month for the maintenance of the watermill and the turbine. Can you get electricity at such low rates?

Actually, the electricity produced in this manner is completely free. People pay only for its maintenance. Even Army and paramilitary forces have requested us to provide them the water-mill technology.

By replacing traditional wooden blades of a water mill with metallic blades and turbines, we are also preventing tree felling thereby earning valuable carbon points. Unlike thermal and nuclear power, water-mills don’t carry dangers like emissions and radiations.

So far, Hesco has installed a total 4825 turbines in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the North-eastern states. Taking 3.5 KW/hour as the average power generation, we can safely claim that we are contributing 16.88 MW power at nominal cost. Or, to take the calculation further, we have during past five years have generated 844 MW power. We have thus saved 25,550 litres of diesel per annum and prevented 9650 trees from being felled every year.

It is high time for the government to seriously consider the status of watermills and actively explore the possible role that this power-generation device can play in the uplift of the community economy. This can be thought out both as a rural industry and an agro facility. This would help us reach millions of villagers who are part of deprived communities in far-flung regions of this vast country.