CLASS FOUR DROPOUT INVENTS A GENARATOR TO LIGHT UP A TOWN

Alex Kiplimo may not have had the opportunity to study all the way to university, but he is a respected man in Iten. The class four dropout from Elgeyo Marakwet County is the envy of his village because he lights up his town with green energy.

The machine, which he is yet to find a name for, makes use of recycled and locally available materials and amplifies power for consumption. The generator consists of a 12v battery, a power invertor and a motor as the key components. It also has a power indicator, a voltmeter and an ameter, which help to control voltage and current respectively. “When ignited, the battery releases power, which is passed to a recycled motor cycle ignition coil that divides the power to feed the motor and the inverter,” Alex, 22, explains. The invertor, made from local materials converts the direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The resultant voltage is fed into a simple step-up transformer and output power is customised for various power requirements. National Environment Trust Fund (Netfund), a state corporation that helps to promote green energy, has helped him not only to market his innovation, but is also taking him through a technology incubation programme. Since all work is manual, the production rate is low, but Netfund is helping by providing technical and material support to boost this local innovation. The generator is available for sale at Sh32,000, but the price ranges with the categories. A class one generator, lights up to six 100 watt bulbs while the highest (eight) can light up to two hundred 100 watt bulbs besides running a typical motor used in posho mills. The journey to this milestone started 14 years ago and is a result of many trials and errors. “I started with dry cells and by aligning them on a wooded rack, I would try to light my room. I wanted more power, but the used cells couldn’t give me enough power. I have made more than eight generators with each not giving the desired results. This led me to make more improvements, and this are the results,” says Alex. The technology has been patented, thanks to Netfund, which has helped him benefit from his industrial property rights.