Message-ID: <19990714194917.AAA14594@LOCALNAME> Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 16:51:18 +0000 From: Kerry Miller <mailto:kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca> Subject: TERI: Improved water mill To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
http://www.teriin.org/news/terivsn/issue14/newsbrk.htm (via www.indev.nic.in )Water mills finally come of age
The water mills, an integral part of people’s lives for the last many centuries in India’s northeast, will never be the same again. And neither would the expectations of these mill owners, which seems to have increased manifold with the introduction of a new set of technologies. Researchers at the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, University of Roorkee and IT Power Limited, United Kingdom have jointly developed a novel technique of increasing the efficiencies of these mills, sometimes by up to 1500%. What is more notable is that the new outfit costs only one-third of the equipment used traditionally over its lifecycle.
It is estimated there are more than a lakh of these watermills in the Himalayan region. This ancient technology has been used since centuries in the hilly regions for grinding grain and other material or for rotating prayer wheels by the Buddhist monks. Socially, they have been meeting points for villagers to get together.
... The development and installation of these new water mills are part of the UNDP-GEF Hilly Hydro project that aims to optimize water mills technology in the entire Himalayan region of the country. The new improved design of water mills, both mechanical upgradation and cross flow designs, have been developed by these three consultants together. TERI’s brief further was to implement suitable systems in the eastern and north-eastern states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, and West Bengal. Notably, water mills rarely exist in the states of Assam, Mainipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, and West Bengal and it is TERI’s brief to popularize them in these states. Says Dilip Singh, Reseasrch Associate at TERI and a key member of the team that carried out the installations, " The project assumes special significance given the remoteness of these areas and the lack of access to conventional sources of electricity and power".
Five mills have been upgraded by TERI researchers in the state of Arunachal Pradesh to showcase the advantages of this new technology developed specifically for water mills in the Himalayan region. Th table below clearly shows the manifold increase in efficiency levels. However, this is just a small part of the whole benefit that accrues to the mill owners.
Notably, due to the increased efficiency levels of these new machines, they can be effectively employed to produce electricity in addition to meeting the mechanical power needs of the people. One of these cross-flow water mills could produce anywhere between 3- 5 kW of power, sufficient to meet the electricity needs of 25- 50 households. However, the cost of mills and accompanying machinery to produce power could be around rupees 150,000. The social and economic benefits arising from having electricity in these villages would be self-evident -- higher income levels, more time for recreation and study, and ability to undertake additional economic activities.
The work does not stop here. TERI plans to upgrade a further 45 water mills in the coming months. Many of these would be multipurpose, meeting both electricity and mechanical power needs. Constant monitoring of these mills would be carried out to bring out further improvements in the system. Singh is very hopeful of the future involvement of local people and NGOs in this initiative and says, "Their participation would be a key factor in the success of future installations, especially for those with power generation capabilities". These new mills truely embody the essence of a sound technological development - higher efficiency and output at a reduced cost, leading to social good.
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