Warwick Rwenzori Hydro Team 2014
Researching Low-cost Hydro
Electricity Technologies for
Rural Uganda
Background
Project aims and Objectives
The purpose of this project is to promote community driven, hydro power schemes
in rural Uganda. We aim to encourage business based solutions with communities
empowering themselves in terms of development and electrification. In 2011, a
rural community was led through the process of developing a sustainable and
locally understandable hydro power scheme for the local school. The site for the
project is located in Mabwe, a rural trading centre of around 60 households with
good buying power situated a few kilometres from the school site. The community
supplied all labour, tools, materials and made a large contribution to the
transmission and turbine costs. The 2012 team were involved with the
maintenance of the three existing schemes, Mabwe, Bihondo and Mount Gessi,
working towards a truly sustainable model, eventually removing the need for
western aid altogether. 2013 saw the installation of a new concrete flow channel
and sedimentation tank in Mabwe as well as an expansion of the grid at Bihondo.
This year’s team aimed to:
 Extend the Bihondo grid to provide power to a larger region of people by
installing a lager flow pipe and generator thereby boosting the power supplied to
the village.
Extend the Mabwe scheme so that the grid reached a nearby clinic which required
electricity to power a vaccine fridge.
Assess the scheme at the Mount Gessi site in order to gain a better understanding
of what must be done, physically, socially and culturally, to get the scheme
operational again.
.
Methodology
1. To begin
with we
removed the
old wooden
channel
which had
rotted and
was now of
no use.
5. The concrete was then
mixed onsite by local
labourers and supervised
by the team. The cement
was transported from the
local town and sand and
aggregate were sourced
locally.
9. The
concrete was
then worked
into all of the
spaces
between the
formwork,
leaving no
gaps.
2. We then
constructed a dam to
prevent the water
flowing into the
channel whilst it was
constructed. The
ground was then
flattened, levelled
and compressed.
3. The steel
reinforcement was
then designed and
constructed for the
concrete channel
using manual metal
arc welding.
6. The concrete
was poured into
the wooden
formwork and
compressed to
leave no gaps or
holes in the base
of the channel.
10. Once the
concrete had set
the formwork was
removed leaving the
concrete walls for
the sides of the
channel.
4. The steel
reinforcement was
then transported to
site along with
wooden formwork
for the concrete.
Both were laid
level into the
channel.
7. Formwork was
then constructed
and placed on top
of the setting
concrete base and
fixed together using
long bolts covered
by blue pvc piping.
8. Concrete
was then
mixing and
poured inbetween
the
wooden
form work.
Once the concrete channel was
completed our supervisor was then able
to install the turbine and generator as the
team moved on to construct the concrete
godfathers for the transmission poles.
Project concluding remarks
Author: Sam Butterworth
Supervisor: Dr Colin Oram
Department: School of Engineering
We intended to achieve community engagement by consultation, involvement and participation of
local people and in doing so build an inclusive model for their community leaders to follow. We
planned to use a local workforce who will voluntarily contribute their time and experience in order to
make this project a success and to avoid people only engaging with the scheme because of the
financial gain instead of the benefits to their community. We planned to do this by making them aware
of the long-term benefits of our project and thus allowing them to take ownership and responsibility
for the scheme. We made a lot of progress with this objective but there is yet room for improvement
which next year's team, which I plan to be a part of, shall work on.