I couldn’t help but feel proud of the IST students when I walked into the library on Thursday May 10^th.  I know the students had been working hard to fund raise money to donate solar lights to students less fortunate than they were.  I had sat with them  and talked solar, on fund raising ideas and logistics of setting up displays and planning an event, but what they accomplished was beyond all expectations.

Salah, Lynn, Yumeka & Stephanie working at the solar booth

In a few short weeks 4 students managed to fundraise enough money to provide 30 solar lights to a disadvantaged school, promote solar to all their classmates, teachers and staff members, write a series of essays on solar, promote a book (written and printed with their fellow students) called “Write for Light”, host a raffle and set up an interactive solar booth with working solar models, electric solar games, banners, posters… complete with a TV documentary.

Salah managed to build a working solar model with a 15w solar panel, 9ah battery and a 150w inverter.  He even wired two light bulbs to the system with switches so students could turn it on and off and see exactly how the power was generated.  When his father won a solar light in the raffle the family donated the light to a staff member who really needed it, but could not afford it.

Salah posing with the solar system he designed and built with a family friend

Lynn build a battery operated trivia game where questions were on one side of the board and the answers were placed randomly on the other side of the board.  Participants rolled a dice which numbers corresponded to a question and they had to hold a wire to the question and another wire to the answer they thought to be right.  If the light at the top of the board turned on the person won a prize.

Lynn testing the how much ARTI's Program Director, Dennis Tessier, knows about solar

The group also designed a really nice banner with a picture of the PowaPack 5w and the slogan “Be Bright Buy a Solar Light” which was impossible to miss upon walking into the library.  This simplicity of the message and the intelligence of the delivery is surely worthy of praise from even professional marketers.

Yumeka & Salah posing in front of their catchy banner and solar display

Overall, the students did an amazing job at exploring the potential of solar in Tanzania and promoting solar to the world.  They have proven to be solar ambassadors and leaders of today and tomorrow.  Most importantly they did it all and managed to have fun at the same time.  ARTI is proud to have been a part of the effort and the fun!

Presenting the solar lights donated by Anju Bassam (Patankar) to the raffle winners.

Students hoist the board with the solar panels

Students from the International School of Tanyanika donated 30 solar lanterns to Pwani Primary School in Bahari beach on May 3^rd, 2012.  The donation was the result of months of hard work fundraising money for the project.

The students sold books “Write for Light” hosted “solar cafe’s” and sold raffle tickets.

ARTI Energy donated a Firefly, PowaPack Junior 2.5w and PowaPack 5w on behalf of Anju (Patankar) Bassam, from Pune, India who made a 250 USD donation to help support students who cannot afford a light to study at night.  The students will be raffling off the to raise even more money to help brighten up more students lives.

IST students unpacking the solar lights

The IST students travelled to Pwani School to hand over the lights as well as to help train the students on how to use them properly.  As another gesture of good will they also donated some books for the school library.

The whole ARTI team is proud to have been part of this effort and look forward to doing it again.

the GACC meeting brought together a wide range of actors from the cook stove, biomass sectors, including private industry, NGO and government leaders

Dennis Tessier, ARTI Energy Program Director, attended the Global Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves (GACC) “East Africa Stakeholder Consultation and Strategic Planning Workshop held in Nairobi from the 23^rd to the 25^th of April.  The meeting brought together a wide range of stakeholders from the cook stove and clean fuels sector, including cook stove manufacturers, clean fuel developers, carbon experts, donors, development agencies and other market facilitators.

The aim of workshop was to tap into the vast expertise existing in East Africa and to coordinate efforts so that a regional strategy can be developed and implemented.

Detailing the top country priorities to the delegation

ARTI took the opportunity to share the organizations experiences over the past 5 years, most particularly with its efforts to promote charcoal briquetting technology using agricultural waste and other dry biomass in Tanzania.  ARTI particularity emphasized the importance of alternative fuels in the equation when discussing cook stoves using the progress made through the World Bank’s Biomass Energy Initiative for Africa (BEIA) as an example of efforts already being made on the ground.  ARTI has been implementing the “Production of Charcoal Briquettes Project” with World Bank, BEIA, support since 2010.

In the meeting alternative fuels proved to be an important factor and was included in Tanzania’s top 5 of National Priorities and within the top 10 of regional priorities.  This is echoed in the draft road map of GACC, with a major point for enabling being “Fuels and Technology”, stating to “ensure access to clean, efficient and appropriate cooking technologies and fuels at scale and again in the text to “Champion the Sector” stating to “ensure clean cook stoves and fuels become a government priority in policy, programming and resources, and are connected and integrated into other large-scale government programs and initiatives.”

The meeting is the third meeting ARTI has attended over the past year in what is hopefully a build up towards a coordinated effort of stakeholders supporting the sustainable development of the biomass energy industry in East Africa.  ARTI also attended the World Bank’s “African Clean Cooking Initiative (ACCI) workshop in Nairobi, Kenya in 2011 and the African Energy Ministers Meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2011.

ARTI Energy is featured in the GACC workshop binder for future reference of participants.

IST students learning about solar with Dennis from ARTI

Three grade 5 students from the International School of Tanganyika, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, have started a project to raise money to provide solar lamps for Tanzanian students who don’t have access to electricity in their homes.

Lynn, Salah and Stephanie are excited about helping students so that they can see to do their homework at nighttime, without the use of dangerous candles and kerosene lanterns. Not only are these fire hazards but also the ongoing cost to buy candles and kerosene is often too much for poor families.

A book of student stories called Write for Light has been published by IST Elementary and is being sold by the group to raise money for this project. The students are also planning to sell solar lights provided by ARTI and all the money raised will be used to fund a solar lamp-lending program for a local school in Dar es Salaam.

Fundraising will continue over the next 6 weeks and the lamps to be donated will be purchased from ARTI by the start of May 2012.

If you want to make a donation and/or buy a book to support the project please send an email to dennis@arti-africa.org

“Knowledge is love and light and vision” – Helen Keller

There is nothing worse than the power going out when you need it most, whether it is at home or work.  Power cuts disrupts our daily lives…we cannot get work done, our children cannot study, our food spoils, we miss our favourite T.V shows and, most importantly, our homes are less safe.

There is no need to dread going home because you know the power will be cut and you don’t want to sit in the dark…you can buy a backup or solar-backup system.

Before I installed my solar-backup system my life was miserable.  The worst part of it was knowing the power was going to cut and trying to decide what to do while I waiting for it to come back on…that is until I learned about installing a backup system.

I first started with a Barefoot Power 5w PowaPack.  It was a simple, “plug and play” system with four lights, phone charging and it could also play a small radio.  I put two lights in my living room, one in the corridor and one in the kitchen.  The PowaPack ensured we had a nice bright light at night for less than 200,000 Tsh.

After installing the PowaPack I decided to install a 15w Home Lighting System to provide security lights outside of the house.  I installed the panel on the roof, the two tube lights on the outside walls under the facia board away from the rain, the motion sensor light near the gate and the additional two LED lights in the two bedrooms.  It was very comforting to have lights on when the power was cut as it let everybody know that we were home.  For less than 400,000 Tsh the system was worth the money.

15w solar panel and tube light with switch wire

This year I finally decided to invest in a larger solar backup system.  This system was much larger than my previous systems, having a 1500w inverter/charger with 400 amp hours of battery back.

240 Watt solar panels provide charging during the day

the charge controller indicating the solar is charging the batteries and the status of the batteries

The benefit of the solar backup is that the 240 watts of solar power allows us to use power all day while keeping the batteries topped up for use in the night.  The inverter/charger is integrated into my main switch so when the grid power cuts the system automatically switches over to the backup system with no interruption in the power supply.

Inverter turns on automatically when the power cuts

Charger automatically charges the batteries when the power comes back on

The solar backup system is powerful enough to run my outside security lights, lights inside the house, ceiling fans, 32” T.V, DSTV, DVD player, two laptops and internet modem.

The power cuts is no longer an issue at home. In fact, I rarely notice when the power is cut.  We also installed a slightly larger system in our office and work is no longer disrupted.

Inverter/charger sitting on top of the battery box

Whether it is a smaller system to provide some light in your home or security light outside, or a larger system to be integrated with your current A/C grid connected system I hope my story has helped you realize that you don’t have to accept darkness.  You can invest in solar and solar backup systems.