Kathmandu, May 6: The majority of the unelectrified population in Nepal does not have access to electricity.

However, human power is universally available and is quite applicable if only a small wattage is required.

Several groups have come up with schemes for incorporating pedal generators in rural electrification projects for remote areas of Nepal.

One such group is the Nepal light project led by professor Irvine-Halliday of the University of Calgary and engineering students of the center for energy studies at the Institute of Engineering in Kathmandu, according to Nathan Eagle, a mechanical engineering graduate from Stanford University, usa, who is spending a l0 month Fulbright grant working on an assortment of appropriate technology issues.

Professor Irvine-Halliday’s generator is designed specifically for white leds and battery charging.

Using the system be designed, 20 minutes of extremely minimal pedaling gives 3-4 hours of light to a household (using 6 white leds).

In a report to the usef Nepal bulletin, Eaglel said he has started putting his own prototype using locally available parts. Bicycle dynamos imported from India and China are available in Kathmandu.

Connected to a multimeter, he was able to verify that they put out about 12v ac and 6 watts of power. Installing 10 in parallel on a used 12-speed bicycle should generate over 50w, enough to power a black and white tv as well as adequate white led lighting.

However, much of the potential users of these systems (especially the women) are already overburdened with manual labour. A more elegant, although location specific, solution would be to leverage the work already exerted in existing daily labour.

An example could be a simple dynamo hooked onto a hand-grinder, Eagle points out.