Small wind turbines (SwiTs) for sustainable livelihood.

Africa combined generates electricity equivalent to France alone. What France uses to produce Rafael jets, commercial aircraft and wine industries Africa divides unevenly among a billion people.

Malawi along with most subsaharan Africa where most of the 600million people have no access to electricity has not been fast enough in solving the problem.

In Malawi over 80% of the population (15 million) have no access to grid electricity.

Pregnant women for example are told to take candles at night when delivering just in case electricity goes off.

Rural areas which host 80% of the population have only 4% electrification rate, which affects healthcare, the economy and education.

We design and build small wind turbines using locally available resources like scrap metals, junk electronics and timber.

We then use an Arduino microcontroller to monitor the wind turbine speed and efficiency using mobile phones and computers.

A wind turbine uses the wind as prime mover for the blades which cause the generator to rotate and produce electricity.

We then use voltage stabilizers and rectifiers to obtain D.C power and charge batteries or directly use A.C power.

We manufacture blades from different materials depending on application, we use PVC pipes usually waste plastics which we mould to fit our purpose. We also use timber blades and sometimes for very small turbines of a few watts we use fan blades of fans no longer in use.

We make our own generators by using old coils from car alternators and washing machines to produce the power we need.

Currently our biggest design is 5Kw.

For braking we use a car wiper motor which gets instructions from the Arduino microcontroller to move the tail vane out of the wind when the speed gets close to dangerous like in storms.

Our small wind turbines are designed to produce electricity in lowest speeds possible using gears and pulleys and others are simply direct drive.

1. Rural households: rural electrification in Malawi stands at 4% despite the fact that above 80% of Malawians (18.4 million) live in rural areas. Small wind turbines are best for rural areas because of the absence of high rise structures. We could offer pay for services business model to cover these areas which is really best for our rural population.

2. Farms: Malawi is an agro based economy.

Our small wind turbines can be used by farms to boost agriculture and enhance food security.

3. Rural hospitals: pregnant women in Malawi even in urban areas are told to carry candles at night just in case electricity goes off during delivery due to load shedding.

Our small wind turbines can provide the much needed back up to make hospitals energy resilient.

4. Semi- urban households and industries:

Households need affordable back up systems to cover for losses due to load shedding.

Industries can use our small wind turbines to cover as backup when grid power is unavailable.

Our team is well positioned because we have lived these problems first hand and come from underprivileged communities.

We know what it is like to have no electricity and the costs that are paid. 

We have also worked with communities on delivering clean energy solutions. Most recently we powered a primary school using our small wind turbine and solar of 150 students and 4 teachers.

We have the experience and connections to target local communities and authorities.

Our small wind turbines come in various variety, from a few watts for just charging phones and lighting to several kilowatts for powering small businesses, schools and health facilities.

The small wind turbines are designed to be easy to fix with little training.

We are learning more about the community needs through surveys and direct engangement with potential customers to understand their concerns about our technology.

We also test our prototypes in these communities to see what adjustments can be made.

We need funding to help us obtain the following:

1. Basic equipment like welding machines , drilling machines, desktops for designing and safety equipment.

2. Transportation vehicles to help us reach the most remote part of Malawi.

3. Testing sites of our small wind turbines.

4. Patent rights.

We also need technical and mechanical expertise to help us improve the programming and increase monitoring range of these small wind turbines to maximize safety. We have ideas of how we want the algorithm to look like but we have limits.

We are also aware of our limited business knowledge and marketing skills and seek mentorship and assistance on these fronts.

5. Marketing and publicity.

We face barriers in marketing because we have limited publicity and advertisement and we therefore need help on this 

6. Technical support.

We use basic technology and reverse engineer generators for example but we need larger generators from suppliers and we do not have connections to achieve this. We therefore seek technology assistance and expertise to perfect this.

We design a small wind turbine from scratch depending of the targeted power output we need.

We then use open source NACA airfoils to shape wooden blades that are efficient and operate at low speeds.

We use wastes like scrap metals from abandoned cars and junk electronics from abandoned electronics   to shape a strong wind turbine and powerful generators that produce up to 5 kilowatts.

Wind turbines are complex because they cut across so many disciplines like Electrical engineering , mechanical engineering and civil engineering.

We use Arduino microcontrollers to monitor the turbine speed using an infrared sensor for safety. Wind turbines must not spin out of control, so we have designed a smart braking system to guarantee safety.

These wind turbines are market changing in that they use wind, a free resource and is locally built and many times cheaper than imported equivalents. Affordability is at the heart of innovation diffusion in Malawi because of the low purchasing power of a majority of people since it is one of the poorest country in the world.

Our wind turbines will have maximum impact since they are best for rural areas where a majority of Malawians live (above 80%).

1. Power 50 households in the next year and 6,000 in the next five years.

We will achieve this by building more prototypes and working small wind turbines and introducing pay for service model to collect monthly fees with free servicing and management of the small wind turbines.

2. Power 10 farms in the next year and 200 farms in the next 5 years.

This will be achieved by targeting farmers doing irrigation and demonstrating how our technology can save their costs and increase output.

3. Power 10 hospitals in the next year and 200 in the next 5 years.

We will achieve this by convincing the government and hospitals through practical demonstrations of how our wind turbines are a safe alternative.

4. Employ 20 people in the next year and 5,000 in the next 5 years.

This will be achieved by increasing production output and presence throughout the 3 major cities in three regions of Malawi.7

1. Number of potential customers getting intouch requesting for sales or services.

2. Number of working prototypes built.

3. Awards and grants won in accelerator programs.

4. Number of passionate young men and women requesting to join our start up.

By building low cost smart wind turbines and testing our prototypes we will have working solutions to help solve the energy challenge in Malawi.

Nearly 15 million Malawians have no access to electricity. 80% live in rural areas and cannot afford imported wind turbines.

We are able to make small wind turbines at a fraction of a cost and have the local knowledge and expertise to deploy them at affordable costs.

Wind energy is a free and climate friendly resource which does not fuel costs and is widely available in Malawi.r

The core of our technology is wind and generators. We use the wind as a prime mover to rotate the blades which are directly connected to generators and generate power.

We use this power directly and also use it to charge batteries for storage.

The brain of the system is an Arduino microcontroller which is programmed to 1. Monitor wind turbine performance, that is speed and power production and 2. For braking system to ensure safety in extreme winds. We monitor the wind turbines using a smart phone and computer via the internet and smart phone app and software.

We currently have 3 women out of 10 full time team members.

1. Faith Banda is a managing director who along with Paul Chris Mwale our CEO shapes the direction of the company.

She has total freedom and a loud voice in designing, business model and sales and is looked upon an equal and co-leader.

2. Teamo Nyangulu is an engineer and has total command on quality and customer assurance.

3. Memory Chikunkhuzeni is responsible for publicity and social media posts. She has complete freedom as much as all members.

Going forward we want to have more women and girls to be involved in our start up and to have equal freedom and opportunities to join a journey to help shape the country's energy industry in Malawi.

We aim to have more women and girls involved in the engineering and manufacturing sector.

1. Direct sales: we can provide direct sales of our small wind turbines to households, rural hospitals and farms for irrigation.

2. Energy services:  we can offer pay for service model which is best for Malawians than direct sales. Most can afford fee for service and its best because we can be there to provide maintainance and operation.

3. Consultancy: we can be able to size and design systems to people who just want our expertise on energy systems.

1. Sales: we mass produce different designs of small wind turbines and sell to customers be they households, farms and industries. This will enable us to make profits and be financially viable.

2. Services: we will operate mini-grids and isolated insulations and collect fees for services.

This will enable us to have constant cash flow and the ability to have loyal customer base.

3. Consultancy: we will provide expertise to customers about designs and material choices at a fee enabling us to be financially stable and make profits.

4. We will pitch our achievements and goals to accelerator programs and international NGOs to receive grants to enable us to go far.

1. We won a grant of &1,200 from Global Changemakers to power a primary school of 150 students and 4 teachers in the northern part of Malawi using our wind turbines. We pitched our ideas and won out of 700 other candidates.

2. We won a grant of $1,300 from mhub as seed capital to enable us to buy some basic equipment after pitching our ideas to judges and won out of 100 other entrepreneurs.