Delivering affordable wind power for the “Global South”

Welcome to the November issue of The Tuesday Technical. In this edition, I am exploring an exciting wind turbine technology designed by the University of Oxford in the UK.

The standard “go-to” solution for renewable energy in the Global South is solar. But what about other sources of free energy from wind and water?  Hydro energy systems require expensive infrastructure such as dams to be built so are normally commissioned at scale by governments. Wind turbines can also be built as large projects, but what about medium sized systems?

Wind as a power source is often considered too expensive to implement. Cheaper and smaller systems such as those designed for boats often lack the power capacity to run a small office, clinic or school. These small systems cost between $1,000 and $1,500 and only generate 300 Watts of energy.

Oxford University recognized that there was a gap in the range of affordable solutions available and designed an affordable wind turbine which can be used in the global south. For more than ten years, the University have been operating a low-cost wind turbine in Ireland. With this proven design, it was time to take the technology south to Africa!

Over the past two years, Oxford University have partnered with Save the Children International who are facilitating a site in Somalia. Eire Composites from Ireland is another partner in the consortium and responsible for the turbine blades. The project is called OxReGen which will also be the brand used to market the system in the future.

A new system is currently being constructed and will be operational in the first few months of 2025. In this article. Read on to learn more about OxReGen!

Before considering implementing a wind generator, its essential to conduct an assessment exercise to validate that wind energy is the most appropriate solution for the site.

A significant benefit of the wind turbine system is its ability to generate a high volume of electricity without taking up too much space. The OxReGen system is designed to produce 10KW and will only use just over 8 square meters of space. For a solar system producing the same volume of energy, the space needed is 30 – 60 square meters (depending on type of panels used). In some places where space is tight, a wind turbine might be the only viable solution for green energy!

Important questions to ask: “Will there be enough wind?” There are plenty of places in the world where wind is plentiful. But other locations hardly get wind at all, so it’s important for those commissioning a new project to establish if there is sufficient wind to make the project viable and secure a good return on investment.

The OxReGen team used the Global Wind Atlas to select potential windy locations. Qardo in Somalia was selected and in May 2023, the team conducted a site visit and installed a wind monitor to measure wind direction and strength of a period of a few months. The data recorded confirmed that the site was viable for the pilot system and the decision was made to proceed to construct a turbine in a clinic.

The OxReGen is different to standard wind turbine systems as the turbine has been designed to be low maintenance and low cost. The first prototype was built by Professor John Greg in Ireland over 10 years ago and still operating. The mechanical parts are simple and lack the need for a complicate gear boxes and other moving parts. The simplicity of its mechanical design makes the system easy to maintain by any local qualified vehicle mechanic.

On the electrical side, the core generating source is a simple induction motor, a very common part available in most countries. The clever part is how the output from the induction motor is used. Oxford university have designed a patented circuit convert the output from the induction motor to useable power. These circuits have other essential functions to control the turbine as wind speeds increase.

The pilot unit was made in the labs at Oxford University by Sally Lord and Finlay Ryburn and on the ground, the Save the Children construction team are building the tower using drawings provided by OxReGen.

Challenges: As with all projects, there will always be the unexpected issue which needs to be resolved. Towards the end of 2023, there was a break-in at the lab where the turbine was being made. Luckily the turbine survived the event, but damage to the lab caused by vandals resulted in delays to the work.

Sourcing the metal tubes to construct the tower was not easy!  The correct specification of tubes was not locally available in Somalia, so an attempt was made to source from Kenya. The Kenyan option failed due to excessive export bureaucracy.  Eventually the tubes had to be sourced from the UAE.

With all tubes and other components received in Somalia, work is now underway to construct the tower which should be completed before the end of 2024.

When the tower is complete, the OxReGen team will travel to Somalia early in 2025 to complete the installation of the turbine system. This will provide power to the clinic to power the vaccine fridge, community phone charging points and lighting.

Alongside the main wind generating system, we are building a small solar energy system as a backup. The wind in Qardo is not constant and there does need to be a back up power source for the days when there is no wind.

After this pilot has been installed evaluation will commence for a few months. The built-in IOT technology will allow the team to monitor the performance of the turbine. Performance data and lessons learnt from the build phase of the project will be used to fine tune the design and implementation procedures.

I have been very proud to be part of this project and very pleased that the best brains in academia are innovating new affordable solutions to help society move away from fossil fuels. For OxReGen the journey has only just started as the team begin testing the pilot model next year. In the future, OxReGen technology will reach the stage where it can be truly affordable and completely manufactured in the global south.

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