Power for the World A Common Concept

Abstract

Within the ALIZES program in Mauritania in the Traza district, 18 villages have installed a wind battery charger for village electrification during 1993 and spring of 1996. The wind turbines installed in 1993 are in the framework of a demonstration project to test the technical performance of the equipment, and to monitor the costs and benefits. The applications vary from village to village from collective lighting to individual battery charging and water pumping. The wind turbines are Dutch Fortis types F1003 with 1 kW rated output and F2500 with 2.5 kW rated output. GRET, a French NGO, initiated a large wind pumping project ALIZES by approaching the Mauritanian Ministry of Hydraulics and Energy (H&E) in 1987. The overall objective of the program is to develop the use of wind energy in rural areas in West Africa. The first five-year program was targeted at wind pumping and led to the installation of 100 wind pumps. The whole program was so successful that the Mauritanian Ministry of Hydraulics and Energy proposed a new program for electrification with small wind chargers, the program ALIZES-electric. The project aims at developing a methodology for diffusion of wind-power decentralized systems to small villages. As in the ALIZES-pumping program, the strategy to be economically viable is the introduction of a relative large number (100) of reliable machines that will be installed in a limited area (Traza in the South West part of Mauritania) and to form a local company to handle operation and maintenance. This paper will concentrate on there villages with Fortis wind battery chargers and technology transfer for local production of components.