The Rwanda team has been working with the community of Muramba since 2003. On their most recent trip to Rwanda in 2008, it became apparent that the community’s energy needs, specifically at St. Maria Goretti Secondary School for Girls, desperately needed to be addressed. Each year, the school is forced to spend a substantial portion of its limited funds on buying diesel fuel to run a small generator for 3 hours a day. The lack of electricity has served as a major hindrance in providing an adequate education for the students because they are not able to study at night. By implementing a reliable and sustainable energy source, such as a photovoltaic (PV) solar energy system, the school will be able to apply the money currently spent on fuel to what it really should be for: the students’ education. The aim is to not only be able to provide a solar lighting system for the school, but to also train the local community to successfully install and maintain the system to ensure its continued success as a renewable and sustainable source of electricity.
The Rwanda team is currently planning on installing the solar lighting system at the St. Maria Goretti School during the summer of 2009. The team has been working on designing the system, and will practice installing portions of the system here at CU. In addition to the design, testing, and implementation of this project, the team will also prepare a detailed maintenance plan to get the optimum lifetime out of the system.
In addition to providing an international experience in sustainable and responsible engineering, the project will also give many students, not just those traveling, firsthand experience in PV solar design and installation. ‘Green’ sources of energy, including photovoltaics, are becoming increasingly important for any engineering student to learn and understand. Increased exposure to renewable and sustainable technologies, at home and abroad, is now of great importance for any engineering student.
To ensure the continued success of the PV system at the St. Maria Goretti School, the Rwanda team will be working with the community and a local energy company to install the system and teach them how to properly maintain it for continued success, demonstrating that the best learning is through teaching.
High Efficiency Stove Project
Stoves Research and Micro-enterprise
The kitchens in most Rwandan homes can be described simply as indoor fireplaces. The smoke filled rooms are so awful that respiratory disease has become one of the biggest health problems in Rwanda. It is hard to believe that families are forced to spend the majority of their budget on firewood because of the huge deforestation problem that exists in Rwanda.
In response to this problem the EWB-CU Rwanda team has designed and implemented a high-efficiency cooking stove that reduces firewood usage by up to 70% and virtually eliminates smoke in the kitchen. This year, the team is working on further research to make these stoves even more efficient as well as the creation of a micro-enterprise. The micro-enterprise will make it possible for Rwandans to replicate the stoves and also create a sustainable business.
The 2008-2009 Stove team has been working on a residential size rocket stove. The new stove design will be similar to stoves already implemented in Muganero, except much smaller. The stove will have a one pot cooking capacity. Although the stoves will operate properly with only one pot size the team is actively working to find ways to make the stove multi-pot compatible..
Currently, the stove design team is: -Writing construction manuals that will be aid in the implementation of the stoves in Rwanda.
The construction manuals will contain information skills/materials/tools required, materials preparation, cement composition and maintenance -Waiting out the cold weather to be able to build 2-3 prototype stoves.
Since pouring cement is near impossible in cold weather the stove team is waiting for the thaw. When that happens the construction of prototypes will begin at the EWB test site on CU’s east campus (on 30th across from the park). Since building these stoves from scratch is very labor intensive any help would be very much appreciated!
-Authoring a test plan that documents how to run a "water boiling" test (provides a metric for stove efficiency).
After the prototypes are made thorough efficiency tests will follow. A test plan will have to be drafted that can accurately and reliably test a stove’s wood consumption and relate that to how fast a pot of water can be brought to a boil.
-Researching ways to optimize combustion while minimizing wood usage.
For questions about the Rwanda project, contact Christina at
Rwanda Project
