冷蔵庫部品でＤＩＹ水力発電機　村に電気を運ぶマラウイ男性の挑戦

【ヨベヌコシＡＦＰ＝時事】アフリカ・マラウイ北部の村ヨベヌコシ。子どもたちはかつて、夜になるとろうそくの明かりで宿題をしていた。電気がなかったからだ。現在、一人の男性が自家製の水力発電機で、周辺世帯に電気を供給している。（写真はマラウイ北部のヨベヌコシで、水力発電装置を調整するコルレード・ヌコシさん）
　コルレード・ヌコシさんは２００６年、４０キロ離れた町のセカンダリー・スクール（中等教育）を卒業後、村に戻った。その際、電気なしの生活には戻れないと実感した。
　当時２３歳だったヌコシさんは、家の前を勢いよく流れる小川に、自分の自転車のペダルを何とか回せるだけの水力があることに気付いた。
　そこで、ありあわせの部品で発電機を作り、家に電気を引いた。
　うわさは瞬く間に広まり、近所の人たちが携帯電話の充電をしに定期的に訪れるようになった。
　「電気を使いたいという声が届き始めたので、規模を大きくすることにした」とヌコシさん。
　ヌコシさんは発電技術について訓練を受けたことはなかったが、古い冷蔵庫のコンプレッサー（圧縮機）をタービンに改造。小川に設置して、６世帯分の電気をつくった。
　現在は、使われなくなったトウモロコシの実を軸から外す機械のモーターを活用してより大きな水車を回し、村に電力を供給している。
　村の人々は電気代は支払わないものの、１世帯あたり月に１ドル（約１１０円）あまりの維持費をヌコシさんに渡している。
　だが、これだけでは修繕費を賄うことができないため、不足分は主にヌコシさんの私費で補っている。
　課題はあるものの、ヌコシさんはこの小規模電力網を周辺地域にも広げたいと考えている。
　「より多くの村や学校に電気が通れば（中略）炭を作るために木を切ることはなくなる」とヌコシさん。生徒たちも「勉強する時間が増える」と語った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/09/22-10:41）

Fifteen years ago, when darkness used to fall in Yobe Nkosi, a remote village in northern Malawi, children did their school homework by candlelight: there was no electricity.
But that started to change in 2006, when villager Colrerd Nkosi finished secondary school in Mzimba, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) away, and returned home -- and found he could no longer live without power.
Aged 23 at the time, Nkosi soon figured out that a stream gushing past the house where he grew up had just enough force to push the pedals on his bicycle.
He created a makeshift dynamo that brought power into his home.
Word spread quickly among the cluster of brick houses and neighbours began paying regular visits to charge their mobile phones.
I started getting requests for electricity (and) decided to upgrade, said Nkosi, now 38, sawing through machinery on his verandah in blue overalls.
- Hydro power -
With no prior training, he turned an old fridge compressor into a water-powered turbine and put it in a nearby river, generating electricity for six households.
Today, the village is supplied by a bigger turbine, built from the motor of a disused maize sheller -- a machine that skims kernels of corn off the cob.
The gadget has been set up on the village outskirts. The power is carried along metal cables strung from a two-kilometre (one-mile) line of tree trunks topped with wooden planks.
The users pay no fee for the power but give Nkosi some money for maintenance -- slightly more than $1.00 (0.85 euros) per household per month.
The electricity is basically free, Nkosi said, speaking in local Chichewa.
He admitted that the maintenance income was too small to cover repair costs, which he mainly funded from his own pocket.
Despite the challenges, he is determined to expand his mini-grid to surrounding areas.
Once more villages and schools have electricity... people will no longer cut down trees (for) charcoal, he said.
Students will have a lot more time to study, he said.
- 'Changed my life' -
As dusk settles over Kasangazi Primary School, perched on an adjacent hilltop, chatty groups of learners file into a classroom for a night-time study session.
Before we had electricity here, we used to use candles to study, said student Gift Mfune, sorting through a heap of text books on his desk.
Now... we all have no excuse but to pass our examinations, he exclaimed.
Courtesy of Nkosi, the building is the only school with power out of 17 others servicing the area.
Only around 11 percent of Malawi's 19 million or so inhabitants have access to electricity, making it one of the world's least electrified countries, according to Sustainable Energy for All, a campaign group backed by the UN.
Just four percent of the southern African country's rural population is connected to power, compared to 42 percent in urban centres.
Local councillor Victor Muva pointed out that none of the constituency's more than 18,000 inhabitants were on the national grid.
He has been lobbying the government to help Nkosi expand his work.
The ministry of energy has promised to help design a system that produces adequate power and construct power lines that are safe and reliable, he said.
Across the valley, loud laughter erupts from a house in which Nkosi's cousin Satiel and several relatives are watching a Zambian comedy show on a small television.
Young and old cluster around the screen, teenagers wincing at embarrassing comments from their elders.
I cannot ably explain in words how this has changed my life, Satiel said. I am now able to do so many things.