Smart Villages has been awarded this InnovateUK Energy Catalyst round 10 project jointly with our Tanzanian partners OMASI, to take forward research and testing of our technology solutions and business models for solar boreholes for community access to water and energy.
In northern Tanzania water access is the single highest community priority. Solarising boreholes is the highest-impact way of bringing access to clean-energy and water to these last-mile off-grid communities. However, there are only a finite, and decreasing, number of diesel boreholes to solarise. Access to water is still an issue, and one that is only increasing due to our rapidly changing climate. Universal access to water and electricity are government priorities in Tanzania (and beyond).
Therefore there is an opportunity for us to research whether the technology and business model we have developed can also be applied to the end-to-end process of digging and installing new boreholes and pumps as well as the solar-power system. This would mean that the whole system would never require a diesel generator to achieve more energy and water access, and the solution would be widely applicable to areas that currently do not have access to water and clean energy.
This is a much higher risk business-model due to the difficulty and unpredictability finding ‘wet’ boreholes. Due to complex hydrology, it is difficult to predict from surface surveys whether boreholes will have water, and how much will be available. Thus the technology and business model need to encompass this uncertainty and risk, and have a greater flexibility to respond to whatever water volumes are found.
Data is key, not only for technology solution providers like ourselves to be able to monitor the systems and identify faults/issues, but for government agencies to be aware of water and energy use/availability, and for communities themselves to be aware of trends. Accurate and reliable data is also key for innovative financing mechanisms like carbon credits. We are therefore also further developing our remote shutoff technology in this project to be able to analyse, control and report full system data.
