Two years on

I can't believe it's almost October again. Another academic year has started and this means not only another new intake of fresh meat for the university, but one year less of my PhD. Time doesn't half fly. According to my plan I made at the end of last year, I'd have built a system and be testing it now, and then after Christmas being saving the world. I have a feeling that might not happen now though.

As not much photo-worthy has happened over the last few weeks, I've included some of my favourite photos from the last year here, ones that I've not put in any blog posts before.

An advert for Tena Men I saw in a service station toilet, it made me chuckle a little...

I have to say the work I've been doing over the last few weeks hasn't been the most exciting in the world. I've been writing a paper on the Turgo testing I had done over the June and July. The paper's been quite difficult to get on with, as there have been several gaps I've needed to fill in. Well, not gaps as such, just bits that make the paper read better. At the moment it sounds a bit like a bad GCSE science report - I did this, then I did this, then I did this. A little bit disheartening, but with a bit more work I will hopefully getting it reading a lot better.

The inside of L'Arc de Triomphe, as seen during our trip to Paris last November.

Apart from writing a paper, I've spent a lot of time reading papers. In fact I'm in the process of sorting through over 60 papers that have different methods of droop control, that can be used to help connected inverters into parallel. The problem I've found is that there are a few different methods, with several people publishing papers on each different method. Some of them have slight tweaks which makes the method different, an extra term in the equation here or there, a slightly different mathematical relationship. But I'm not really sure how many different adaptions there are to each one. So the aim of the exercise is to identify as  many different techniques as possible and record the salient points from each and then chose which ones to take forward into a model. This is going to take me a few more weeks, but I'm hoping it will be a worthwhile exercise. Fingers crossed!

Looking out to sea during our stay at the Lighthouse near Lynmouth with my church friends in January.

A birthday cake for Hannah's friend Lydia - I was quite proud of this one, as it was modelled on Lydia's cat Patch.

This month we also had our Harvest Messy Church. These are every quarter, and pretty much every time I cook, principally because it means I'm well away from kids then (slightly loose tongue + children = problem). I also actually really enjoy cooking, and rarely get a chance to cook for a large number of people. We normally cook for about 80 people, and this time we made a soup, packed full of British harvest vegetables. It was good fun, and I was surprised how many of the children actually enjoyed it. Some even came back for more. Who says children don't like good healthy food?

A white rhino we saw in Longleat Safari Park, during the joint birthday trip in March.

Today, I was invited back to Atkins, where I worked before starting my PhD. My friend there, Marie Adeyemi, was going to launch a program called Atkins Aerospace CARES, a corporate social responsibility initiative. Marie has done a fantastic job in convincing the management at Aerospace to allow this to go ahead, and even give the project a budget. They hope it will get Atkins people linking up with charities and NGOs, doing pro bono work and consultancy for them and encouraging a better team spirit in the company. Part of it is to encourage people to take sabbatical's, rather like me. I felt a bit awkward as I had left once I returned from my sabbatical year. However, it was great to see everyone there again. There were some faces I knew and some I didn't. It's strange how it sometimes feels you haven't left at all. Especially when the receptionist asked me if I had just forgotten my pass again (a rather usual occurrence for me!).

My eye, the wrinkles are really starting to show now…

Looking back, this year has been busy, and I've achieved a lot. I've presented at a conference, winning best paper in topic, I've built a small turbine and tested it, getting an amazing efficiency, I've travelled many thousands of miles including two trips to Nepal. However, time doesn't stop. I've got so much more to do in the next year, and if I don't get it done, then i'll be in real trouble. So, here's to the next year being productive, fun and memorable!

SAM

Need and Want

(This is not a normal blog post, it is just a collection of thoughts. These aren't necessarily my final opinions, so if you don't agree with any of the things I've written here, challenge me please. I'm hoping to write a few more like this over the next year, and hopefully record how the internal argument that goes on in my head evolves.)

I always remember my Mum used to say two things to me and my sisters when we were little, to teach us manners:

"What's the magic word?" (when we forgot to say please after making a demand of her)

"I want doesn't get" (when we had tantrums from not having our own way)

Both of these severely annoyed me as a kid, but I think Mum and Dad must have done a good job, as I normally remember please, thank you and don't use I want - except where I'm really lazy or grumpy (apparently it happens some times…).

Coming back from Nepal this time, I've been thinking a lot about needs and wants. What things do we actually need, and what are wants? Is it greed all the things we have in our consumerist world? I realise the irony of talking about this whilst typing the blog on my shiny MacBook, listening to music blaring out of my iPod touch and texting my friends on smartphone (yes, I can sort of multitask!).

But it was something that someone said to me when I visited Dhawa in Gorkha, he thought that the village was too developed. Too developed? Really? Does that mean that all the things they aspire to have is an 'I want' rather than a 'I need'? Dhawa is a village where the water comes from a few water taps dotted around the village, families having to collect their water in a gagri and carry them back to the houses. The national power grid had reached there in the last year, but many households couldn't afford to connect to it. Even those that did, the power is less reliable than Nepali politicians, and would cut out just as evening fell, not returning until the next day. A village where 500 children went to school, but many others didn't because their families needed them to work on the land and earn money, or couldn't afford the small amount of cash to send them to school. In my mind, Dhawa had started along a good road, they were improving their school, trying to find ways to improve the water and sanitation for the whole village, women's meetings were taking place that went across all castes, but this was by no means too developed. Surely these are not things that we want but things that we actually need. They are our basic human rights. Things like this are covered under the UN's Millennium Development Goals, and to my mind are needs not wants. So what is the difference between basic human rights, aspiration, needs and wants?

I, along with most sane people, were appalled by the rioting in London and other cities around the UK in August. I was in Nepal at the time, and was all over the news there too. Although it started out as a legitimate protest, it slowly descended to anarchy, with people seeing it as a chance to get things that they wanted - the latest phone, TV, computer or so on. To me, it was a clear indictment of our consumer driven culture, where everyone must have the newest product, the latest gadget, and have it now, not next week or next year. Again, I do recognise the hypocrisy in my own actions on several occasions. 

And this has made me think about my situation, and what are things I do that are wants, and what are needs. Where do I show the consumerism that we are all encouraged into as this will allow economic growth and make our country 'Great' again. I obviously need to eat and drink, but the chocolate and biscuits are definitely more wants, real weaknesses to me. I need some money to provide me with food, water, shelter and clothing, but do I really need as much as I have? And why do I use the brands I do - do I want to associate myself with the reputation of that brand? I sold my car almost 2 years ago, and I'd really like to get another one, but I don't really need this, it would be a nice-to-have and make my life a little bit easier. I certainly don't need to travel as much as I do, and quite often a pang of guilt hits me about my carbon footprint.

But then, it's some of these wants that actually make life worth living, not just surviving. But how you choose your wants is tricky, how can you work out what really makes you happy? Is your want because you deep down feel it would be amazing to have, or is just because all your peer group have it? And what if that has an impact on someone else? There has been a bit about this in the news recently, with the National Wellbeing Index which is an attempt by our government to measure our happiness. It really shows that what actually makes us happy are our family, friends and things you can't buy. (However, if you take MacBook, iPod or phone I'll be very sad.)

At the Small is… festival there was a lot of talk about whether our current economic system actually worked for the world we live in. I'm going to have a proper go at reading Schumacher's book, Small is beautiful and see what he had to say about the whole situation.

I would just like to finish with a thought from the Bible (1 Timothy 6:7-8):

"What did we bring into the world? Nothing! What can we take out of the world? Nothing! So then, if we have food and clothes, that should be enough for us."

SAM

Back to work again…

After a month off it's been a bit tough to get back in the swing of things. I finished most of the turbine testing before going to Nepal, so now I'm moving on to the electrical side of the project. We have decided to have a power electronic interface between the generator and the grid, so the first part is looking at how to connect inverters in parallel without any central control or stiff grid (like our National Grid). I'm finding this really quite hard, and have started at the basic electrical theory to understand what's going on. There several examples of these control systems in literature - for example here - and I'm using these to start some simulations of inverters connected together in Simulink.

Synchronising parallel connected inverters (the lines are the frequency of two different inverters)

I'm going to be using single phase inverters, as then we won't have to worry about balancing the loads across each phase, as with a three phase system. However, this leads to some problems. With three phase, there are some mathematical transforms that change the 3 sinusoidal voltages into vector quantities, which are much easier to control. With single phase, sadly there is no equivalent. However, there are some ways to get around these problems, so I've been investigating the different solutions to see which will work best.

Buckingham Palace coach

Apart from work, I've been busy and not had a weekend free really. At the end of August, Hannah and I went to see the Queen. Well, we actually we had a look around Buckingham Palace State Rooms. It was amazing, so much gold I have never seen in my life. After the wedding of the year, they had an exhibition in the Palace about the Duchess of Cambridge's dress, and displayed it. I couldn't believe how small she was, I doubt the dress would have been much wider than my thigh… There was also an amazing display of Faberge Eggs and other trinkets. I'm not normally one for jewellery or the like, but they were so intricate, it was just incredible.

Back of Buckingham Palace

We also visited the Royal Mews, where the state carriages and cars are kept. To think of the people that these cars and carriages had carried over the years was just mind-bending. For bank holiday weekend, we went to see my Mum and Dad's new bungalow that there are refurbishing. As it was a really hot and sunny weekend, my Dad had the perfect job for me - remove the insulation from the loft so the electricians could come in and look at the wiring. This was a joyous job, sweating through every pore in a suit that made me look like an Oompa Loompa from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. At the end of the day, Dad and I managed to clear all insulation - my nose wasn't the same for a few days after though - which was great, and he's now put it back in again with a load on new thicker insulation on top of it. It's going to be one toasty house - energy-saving-tastic! 

Me in the Oompa Loompa suit

The first weekend in September was the Small is… Festival run by EWB-UK and Practical Action. The name of the festival comes from the title of a book written by Practical Action's founder, E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. It was an interesting festival, looking at different solutions to problems - energy, sanitation, cooking - through a mix of workshops, discussions, panel sessions and practical activities. Some photos from some of the sessions I attended are below (taken from the Small is… festival website).

Playing with a Solar Panel at Small is… (Photo by Nick Holmes)

Watching the charcoal burn

Listening to V3 Power talk about homemade wind turbines (Photo by Nick Holmes)

I found it quite interesting listening to a wind power debate between a manufacturer, Ampair, NGOs, social enterprises and academics. It got quite heated at some points, but I think some interesting arguments on the advantages and disadvantages of locally made equipment compared with mass manufactured certified designs came out above some of the animosity. As the man from Ampair said, they would set up a turbine factory in a developing country, like Peru, if they could be sure that an NGO wouldn't come in with free money and completely undercut them with inferior hand made products. I'm not sure who I agree with, but an interesting discussion none the less. Hannah came along with me, and I think it was quite a shock for both of us to hear some of the statistics to do with smoke inhalation from open fires, and the health problems that it causes.

Every year in September, Bristol opens all the public buildings for a day - even those normally closed. Hannah and I went on a train along the floating harbour down to the SS Great Britain, then onto the Create Centre where they have an Eco-house and a hazard awareness area for children, which we took  a tour around.

The train outside the M-Shed for Bristol Doors Open Day

Then we visited St Stephen's Church, where we booked ourselves on a jaunt up the tower. The tower looks out over the centre of Bristol, and I thought it would be quite fun to climb. The stairs were very awkward, all stone and not very large to fit my size 13 feet on, with the twisty turns. By the time I got to the top, I have to say I was quite relieved. However, my severe fear of heights kicked in and I didn't really manage to see the view!

St Stephen's Church Tower (we climbed up it, all 152 ft!)

Bell ringing in St Stephen's Church

On the way down, even more scary than on the way up as every step we felt we would slip down, we stopped off at the bell ringing level, and I had a go. I've never rung a bell before, and it was really difficult to try and get it in time.

SAM

Gorilla Hunting

As part of their 175th birthday celebrations, Bristol Zoo commissioned 61 plaster Gorillas to be placed around Bristol - one even made it up to the bus station in Birmingham. They called it Wow Gorillas, and over the summer thousands of people visited them. Hannah and I decided we wanted to see as many as we could by foot and bus, so went on a wander one Tuesday afternoon in the school summer holidays. We enjoyed it so much, that we went the next day as well to find all the other ones nearby! Below are a couple of the gorillas, the album with the 53 gorillas we saw can be found here.

Gorisambard and the Clifton Suspension Bridge

Banana Shirt and me

Back to Nepal - Part 4 - Janai Purnima and Goodbye

I arrived back in the Kathmandu Valley in time for Janai Purnima. Janai Purnima is a time when Brahmin and Chhetri caste Hindus change their sacred thread, it is also when sisters give their brothers bands which they place around their wrists to protect them. Both Saru and Rachhu came to give me and Achut our bands.

The Rakhi that Saru and Rachhu gave to protect me

During this time there is a large festival in Gosainkunda lake in the Langtang Himalaya, where many people go to on a pilgrimage to change their Janai. In Patan, at the Kumbeshwor Temple a similar mela takes place. It is said that the temple is connected to the lake at Goskainkunda by an underground river, whether this is true is anyone's guess. So, I took a quick visit down to the temple with Mama's son, Subash.

Kumbeshwor temple at the Janai Purnima Mela

There were thousands of people at the temple, all wanting to visit the temple, pay respects to their gods and have a blessing from the priest and another thread rakish.

The idol from the temple in the middle of a chariot in a pool - the people were gathering the money at the bottom of the pool to give to the idol

The priests sitting outside the temple

Me and Subash

Janai Purnima is a family time too. Saru and Rachhu had come over from their respective new houses. It was great to see them as I would be leaving in a couple of days afterwards. Going this time was going to be a bit strange. Every time I have gone in the past then I knew when I was going to come back. This time, however, I didn't really know what was going to happen, in the next 2 years I would be needing to finish my PhD and then write up, so when I would be back I wasn't sure. So I made sure I saw as many people as possible in Kathmandu before I left.

Bob

Me and Bob

Krishna and me

Achut and me at the airport

It was a sad day leaving, Aama was ill again, I really couldn't answer when I'd be back next. Buwa gave me a tika and as quickly as I'd arrived it was going again.

SAM

Back to Nepal - Part 3 - Learning Planet

Before I left for Nepal, I spoke with Arthur Williams, who had been conducting research in pico hydro for over 20 years. I had met Arthur a few times over the last couple of years and found him a great person to chat to and bounce ideas off. He had hands on experience of pico hydro systems and was always interested in improvements. He was supervising an MSc project looking at the feasibility of a pico hydro project in Gorkha district of Nepal for a charity called Learning Planet. Learning Planet was run by a former teaching volunteer and her friend in the UK, as well as the Nepali headmaster of a school in Gorkha district. They were looking at trying to improve the local school and community though educational projects. I was quite intrigued, on a pico hydro side, I had never really done any site studies and so wanted to look at different potential sites. On a more development side, some of the projects they were talking about doing were quite different for Nepal. So I decided to visit and see what was going on.

Bus from Pokhara to Gorkha

I took an early morning bus from Pokhara to Gorkha, the district headquarters. From there I caught a bus towards Arughat, a town on the Budi Gandaki river. Soon, a 600MW hydro power station would be built on this river, flooding 40 square kilometres of land and causing many families to be relocated. I'm never sure how I feel about large hydro, especially when land is flooded and people are forcibly relocated. Obviously, a reliable electric supply is invaluable to Nepal's development, and using their own hydropower they would not depend on imports of oil from India. However, there is a lot of research, for example here, which suggests the greenhouse gas emission from these lakes negates any gain compared to fossil fuel based power sources. I have also heard stories from places like Sarawak in Malaysia about large hydro projects not being thought through properly.

The road to Arughat was problematic. In the monsoons, the road had washed away in two places, so I had to change buses twice. Several times, the buses slipped and slid, getting closer and closer to the edge of the road. From leaving Pokhara at 6am, I got off the final bus at about 4pm, being met by two pupils of the Learning Planet school in Dhawa. We then walked for the next hour or so down the valley and then up the side of another hill to reach the village. By the time I arrived in Dhawa I was a sweaty mound, always a great way to meet new people! Sat outside the school was the Headmaster, an unassuming man called Giri Raj Lamichhane. We had tea, and chatted about the school. Another foreigner, a German who had been living towards Manaslu for the last couple of months, had arrived the same afternoon, and Giri took us back to his house for tea. We ate and chatted. Giri told me about his ideas and plans. He wanted to expand the school, currently there were 10 classrooms for 500 children, and they were just going to start teaching plus 2 - A Level equivalent - so needed more classrooms and teachers. As always, money was a problem. They had started to build some classrooms, but funds had run out. Giri seemed to have a different mindset to many that I had met in Nepal. He wanted to improve things by learning themselves, through education and knowledge transfer. It wasn't what I'd normally heard from people.

My two pupil guides to Dhawa

Dhawa

Over the next couple of days I began to really respect Giri. He had taken a lot on, and wanted to make his village a better place. His ideas didn't stop at the school, he wanted to help improve the water supplies, help continuity of electricity through micro hydro projects and help to keep talented people in the village by offering them opportunities there. He did seem to have the whole world on his shoulders though, I wondered if he was taking too much on himself.

The current nursery school

The main school buildings - solar panel provided by Learning Planet through the Envrion Foundation

The classrooms

Pupils clearing a field to do athletics on

Practising the long jump in the newly built pit

Giri took me to look at the river they would like to build the pico hydro. Even in the monsoon season, the flow seemed quite low, so again, my research would not be much use here. However, there was a good head drop, through a waterfall and so could use a small peltric set. There were a couple of possibilities for sources, two rivers in different locations. Arthur's MSc student was conducting the feasibility study for this, to see which would be most appropriate. It was good to try and look at the site and try to picture what it would look like. As it was a river, there was a point where I needed to wade, and being clumsy me, I did fall in the river, to a mix of concern and laughter from the locals that were accompanying us. I didn't damage anything too bad, although I managed to bash my toe and this went black for a good week.

The river for the pico hydro source

There are a couple of projects that Learning Planet are still undergoing, and require funding for. They are both building projects, the pictures are below. If anyone is looking for worthwhile and meaningful projects to support can I recommend these. You can donate here, on their website. They are also looking for teaching volunteers, schools to twin with and communicate with, so if you're interested please contact Learning Planet. I felt very at home in Dhawa, a very friendly little Nepali village, who want to improve all their lives.

Building the new classrooms

The new Nursery school, supported by Architecture for Humanity

The journey back to Kathmandu was as fraught as the journey to Dhawa. When I climbed aboard the bus after an hour's walk along slippery paths, the aisle was full of stones, which confused me. When we arrived at a particularly muddy section of the road, I finally understood. The kalashi (bus conductor) got out and filled in the muddy section with the stones, allowing the bus to drive over it. Again, I had to change buses twice. The final bus coming into Gorkha almost didn't arrive. There was no seating on the bus, so I had to stand in the aisle. The bus was baking, everyone had sweat dripping of their faces. The road had a particularly slippery section a couple of kilometres from Gorkha which the bus seemed unable to pass. We would slip and slide, but never get any further. After a long run up, we flew towards the mud and slipped and slid right to left, towards the edge of the road, which was followed by a drop of about 30ft or so, but the bus managed to squirm its way along the road, finally finding some grip and shooting forwards once again. After the excitement of the bus ride to Gorkha, the trip to Kathmandu was mundane, only a couple of occasions my pulse quickened where the bus overtook on blind corners where we were met by trucks on the opposite side of the road.

I had arrived back in time for Janai Purnima, and then after a couple of days I would leave for the UK.

SAM

Back to Nepal - Part 2 - Rest and Relaxation

I finally arrived in Lalbandi in the late evening, it had taken me the best part of a day to reach there from Ilam, on 4 different buses and being squashed against several different strangers. Bhinajyu, Didi's husband, was waiting for me at the bus stop and I rode pillion on the back of his cycle the few kilometres back to their house in a village outside Lalbandi. They had finished planting their rice a week or so before and were now taking things a bit easier.

Didi's house, just outside Lalbandi

Didi's two sons, Bibek and Bipin - I did a lot of exploring with Bibek during my year in Nepal, see here

Lalbandi is in the Terai, the plains area to the south of Nepal. As such, during the monsoons it gets a lot of rain from the Himalaya above it, and when it's not raining it's roasting hot, normally 40 degrees celsius. I spent my few days in Didi's house sleeping and keeping out of the sun. It was great to just sit back and do very little, the walking in Ilam and then the bus journey had taken it out of my legs, they were not only aching a little, but bruised from the small seats.

When I arrived at Didi's house, Bhinajyu pointed at their buffalo and said that she was due to give birth any time soon. The pregnancy for a buffalo lasts about 11 months apparently, and they were now looking forward to getting some creamy milk. Even better, in the days immediately after the birth the buffalo produced a high colostrum  milk, bigauti in Nepali, which was very tasty. Obviously the calf would have to have some of the milk to ensure it had all the vitamins it needed, but the buffalo would produce too much, so we would have that.

A few days later the buffalo began looking more and more uncomfortable, and in the evening, just before tea after a very short labour the calf was born. It fell to the ground and crumpled in a heap. We waited. The calf didn't move. Was it still-born? The mother looked up at Bhinajyu, it was her first calf and she probably wasn't sure what was supposed to happen now. The calf eventually gave a little cough and came to life.

The calf minutes after being born, Bhinajyu cleaning it up

Bhinajyu rushed in and cleared the calf's mouth from the afterbirth. The buffalo then moved in an started to show a little motherly affection to the calf, before returning to its food. For the next few days the calf got stronger, stood up, walked and one day drank all the milk from its Mum. We ate the bigauti, which when boiled for a long time became quite sweet, and full of vitamins.

Monsoon season is also the time for snakes in the Terai. I had been warned for the last few times I had visited Lalbandi that I would have to be careful about snakes, but I still had never seen one. I wasn't sure if I would be scared to see a snake or not, but I was just very curious. So, one day Bibek and I went to look for snakes, and to visit their fields that were now full of sugar cane - ukhu in Nepali. The snakes would come out during the day as the sugar cane fields wouldn't provide them anywhere cool to lie, and they would lie on the pathways between the fields. I had heard there were snakes the thickness of my leg that regularly sat out.

Bibek took me out to their fields, and showed me a field with banana plants in. Apparently an elephant had come through here a couple of nights before and eaten some of the bananas - I could see some of the footprints it had made. Then we walked through the sugar cane, looking out for snakes. But as we emerged from the field, we had seen none. I was slightly relieved, but a little disappointed as well. I asked Bibek what he would have done if he had seen a snake, he said he would run, and I have a feeling that I would have done the same thing.

Bibek with the sugar cane (left) and bananas (right)

However, a day later my curiosity about what my reaction to snakes was fed as a snake made a dash towards the veranda of the house where Bhinajyu and I were talking. I wasn't scared, it was quite small and I heard the reassuring words in my ear "it's not poisonous".

The non-poisonous snake. But still a snake!

Then all too quickly it was time to leave, from Lalbandi I was heading to Pokhara, the main tourist area in Nepal outside of Kathmandu. I was in Pokhara to meet Narendra Limbu, the chairman of the Pahar Trust. The Pahar Trust is an NGO that develops schools and community health posts in rural locations in the hills of Nepal. It is supported greatly from the UK by the Rotary Club. During a presentation to the IMechE in Bristol in March a supporter came and talked to me about the possibility of putting pico or micro hydro into any of these sites to electrify them. So, I visited the office and had a good chat with them. Although my research I'm doing I don't think will be able to directly help them, I was able to put them in touch with some people that can, which was great. I looked over some of their projects, and they seem to do some fantastic work. They have completed over £1 million of projects now, and are still going strong. I spent the rest of the time in Pokhara near the lake people watching and avoiding the rain, which at times flooded the roads.

Phewa Taal in Pokhara

From Pokhara I was going to head to a new place for me, Gorkha district, to visit a school supported by Learning Planet that wanted to install a pico hydro set to power some lights in the school. Quite exciting!

SAM

Back to Nepal - Part 1 - Tea and Hydro

In the middle of July I headed back to Nepal to have a holiday, catch up with some of my friends over there, try to learn a few more things about the actual implementation of pico and micro hydro and speak to people who now are electrified to see what they see the benefits are.

The first few days were taken up with rest. The previous 3 weeks had really taken it out of me, I was so tired but my mind was still working overdrive and sleeping was a real problem. The continual fly past from the mosquitos didn't help with sleep either. But after a few days I was relaxed and my sleep got better and better. I ate the Nepali staple food of daal bhaat twice a day, went for wanders around Patan where I was staying and watched some truly hideous Indian TV (so many talent shows and bad adverts - my favourite being the Bangur Cement advert when a little old man says Bangur Cement, similar to these).

I visited KAPEG again in Dhulikhel, who had been working with PEEDA (from my year out) on the low head pico hydro axial flow turbine project. They had redesigned the electronic load controller that allowed the voltage to drop below the reference voltage for a short time. This allowed motors to be started with the large inrush current they draw. This is a significant move for pico hydro controllers, as this will allow more industry to be used from the site, bringing cash into village communities. KAPEG had also installed a test site in Panauti, Kavre, where the turbine was installed beside a traditional Nepali pani ghatta, as originally envisioned by the designer. The site was installed next to a irrigation canal that was already constructed meaning that there was only minimal civil works needed. The site provided electricity to a school and a local chicken farm, and now could be used to drill, grind and cut material.

A traditional Nepali pani ghatta

The low head axial turbine casing and induction machine as a generator

The ghatta and turbine side by side in Panauti

Alongside the work KAPEG had been doing, PEEDA had promoted the turbine unit all across South Asia. They had received orders from Bhutan and India, which showed the potential of the project. They had finished their one year project, so during my second week held a workshop to present all the work done with the turbine, from the beginning of the project. This project is very close to my heart, as it is the project that I worked on whilst at PEEDA, and had inspired me to do the PhD. I was very happy that PEEDA had finally managed to get some movement with it.

Pico Axial Turbine Workshop (photo from PEEDA website)

After the workshop I left Kathmandu for a 2 week tour around Nepal. I first headed back to Ilam to see what they thought now they had electricity. I had visited the village of Amchowk last year, where my friend Krishna Panthi was instructing them on the installation of a 28kW micro hydro unit. Now they had it, what did they do with it and what did they think? To get to Ilam was not an easy trip. Last year I flew to Bhadrapur, but this year I decided to take the bus as it was a lot cheaper - around £10 compared to over £100 for flying. The downside was that it took 2 days to reach Ilam Bazar, instead of the half day it would take flying, before another day's jeep ride and walk to Amchowk. As I had arrived in monsoon season, the roads were impassable in many places, forcing a 3 to 4 hour walk to reach the village. Krishna was no longer in Ilam, working in another district, so I went out to Amchowk with NCDC, a renewable energy NGO in Ilam who I also met last year. They were going to a site nearby to do a commissioning test, so I tagged along. In Amchowk, I met with some of the villagers and asked them what they thought the best thing was. They all answered the same thing, ujaalo - the brightness. Before they were dependent on kerosene lamps for light at night, with a few torches. Now, with the energy saving lightbulbs they could see so much better, and even with the 'zero watt' incandescent bulbs - used as they were 10 times cheaper than energy saving bulbs - the light was so much brighter than the kerosene lamps. Alongside the bulbs, people used the power for TVs, radios, mobile phone charging and the community had invested in 3 mills that they ran to process rice and maize. There was also a computer institute that ran classes for locals and a couple of people had their own computer too.

The site in Amchowk last year

The site in Amchowk this year, finished and generating for the last 13 months

A 'zero watt' bulb in Amchowk

I also visited the village of Ekatappa which I had visited last year. They had recently finished their micro hydro system too, and had been running for about one month. As with Amchowk, they powered TVs, mobiles etc. It was interesting that in Ekatappa, as with Amchowk, when there was power, people ran their bulbs, charged their phones, even if it was bright outside. I supposed that this was the advantage of hydropower, the power is always there, you don't need to pay for more fuel to provide it, so you might as well use it whilst you can.

Ekatappa's Deu Mai Micro Hydro project

Ilam is the centre of the Nepali tea industry, and so in Ilam Bazar I went for a walk through the chiya bari - tea gardens. They are a most amazing place a very strange place to wander.

The Ilam chiya bari

From Ilam, I headed to Lalbandi to see Didi and Bibek, who I spent a lot of time with during my year in Kathmandu. The road to Lalbandi passed by the Koshi river. 3 years ago the Koshi burst its banks and flooded across Nepal and India causing widespread devastation and loss of life (news reports from the time can be seen here). However, still in Nepal, the road across the Koshi had not been rebuilt fully, several sections still washed away and people's houses still temporary. I did wonder whether these people had been forgotten, once the initial emergency is over, how does life go back to how it was before? What has been done to prevent this happening again? Well, from the news I watched they still have been doing emergency work on the river dyke to ensure it remains firm, more firefighting than fixes though.

The dykes along the skyline

The rebuilt houses

The Koshi Barrage - meant to prevent the type of flooding that happened

That's all for part one, there still more to come. Lalbandi - Pokhara - Gorkha then returning to Kathmandu for Janai Purnima!

SAM