African and Asian students devise clean energy solutions

Being denied access to clean, affordable and sustainable energy sources can severely impact not just quality of life, but limit the ability to dream and achieve big. Now, many students in Africa and Asia are doing their bit to solve a problem that affects millions of people around them. 

The ability of these students to make a difference in their communities is predicated on the Zayed Future Energy Prize, a globally acclaimed initiative by the UAE. The annual award, established in 2008, celebrates achievements by individuals, schools and corporations and entities that reflect impact, innovation, long-term vision and leadership in renewable energy and sustainability.

In the High Schools category, the Prize covers five regions across the globe, and helps young people become drivers of a bright future. In Africa, for instance, around 600 million people do not have access to electricity, and nearly 730 million rely on traditional and often harmful biomass. Hundreds of thousands of young people’s education is often hit by the lack of affordable energy.

The ratio of electricity [available] per person in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is lower today (excluding South Africa) than it was 30 years ago.

The Zayed Future Energy Prize, through its Global High Schools category, is playing an invaluable role in enabling this progress. In the Africa and Asia regions, six schools — three in each region — have made it to the finals. The winner from each region will receive $100,000 (Dh367,000) on January 16, 2017, in Abu Dhabi

This week, we focus on two of the five regions in the Global High Schools category.

St Mary’s Sosio Girls Secondary School, Kenya

A day and boarding school for girls located in Kenya’s Bungoma county, it is situated 420km from Nairobi. The school is built on 11.5 acres and has boarding facilities for 700 students, 36 teachers and 30 support staff. It maintains a large garden and grazing unit for cows.

Benedict Wasabulo, one of the drivers behind the project proposal, said: “Winning the Zayed Future Energy Prize would enable our school to harness bio-latrine technology for sustainable green energy generation and utilisation for cooking and lighting.”

Project: The school has developed a project to largely replace its reliance on fossil fuels with renewable biogas produced from a bio-latrine system. Students will be encouraged to get their parents to adopt the technology in their homes as well.

Mfantsipim School, Ghana

Mfantsipim is an all-boys school located 110km west of Accra, the capital of Ghana. One-third of the 7.5-square-km premises is covered by forest. The use of wood-fuel as energy threatens the ecological balance of the forest.

Project: The school currently consumes 30,000 kWh (kilowatt-hours) from the grid each month, which it hopes to reduce by 30 per cent over the next five years.

Winning the Zayed Future Energy Prize will allow the school to build a solar PV (photovoltaic) system, install LED lights, and a biogas system to displace electricity from the grid, replace collected fuel wood from the forest, and establish the school as the leading secondary school in the country focused on sustainability.

Frank Wilberforce, project coordinator and physics tutor, is excited about the school being a finalist for a second year in a row: “The funds [from the prize] will be critical in implementing a photovoltaic and biogas expansion project that will diversify the school’s energy sources and help the school cut its electricity bill.”

Starehe Girls’ Centre  and School, Kenya

Starehe Girls Centre and School is a national boarding school founded in 2005 to educate girls from “orphaned and destitute families”.

Project: Implementing a programme of energy-efficiency measures and installing a 25kW (Kilowatt) rooftop PV (photovoltaic) system, together with outdoor solar security lighting and solar water heaters. In doing this, the school aims to reduce its annual electricity costs by 20 per cent, or accrue savings of $11,800 per year. This will enable it to fund an additional 10 pupils. It costs $838 to educate and keep one pupil a year at the school and these costs are met entirely through donations.

As part of the initiative, the school plans to roll out its Cool Green Campaign to raise awareness about sustainable energy development in local high schools.

Green School, Bali

A private international pre-kindergarten-to-high school institute in Indonesia focused on ecology and sustainability, Green School Bali is located near the town of Ubud.

Project: The school proposes the installation of a 10kW (kilowatt) solar PV (photovoltaic) system and a battery-bank from used batteries of mobile phones and notebooks with a capacity of 32 kWh (kilowatt hour). This will also help the local community around the school get access to energy.

This project would be the latest in a series of clean energy and sustainability initiatives undertaken by the institute. These include the ‘PV + battery + micro-grid’ system installed in 2011, a small hydropower plant that is currently being deployed at the school and several other smaller projects relevant to environmental sustainability.

Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, South Korea

The private high school caters to 1,100 students.

Project: Developing an effective and sustainable alternative to its present air-conditioning system, which consumes 1,375,804 kWh of electricity annually.

Towards this purpose, the school plans to invest the prize money in the installation of solar panels and precipitation-collection tanks on the roof to operate evaporative coolers to cool classrooms. To create a wind channelling system to circulate air on each floor, the school will also install Arduino-based window blinds.

British International School, Riyadh

An independent school offering a British-based education system in the Saudi capital city, it has catered to English-speaking boys and girls aged three to 18 since it opened in 1979.

Project: Installing PV solar panels to generate electricity, applying reflective film to the windows to reduce heat gain and installing a rainwater recapture system to water the garden, as well as low-flush toilets and efficient taps.

The aim is to reduce electricity consumption by 50 per cent and water usage by 30-40 per cent.

source : gulfnews