Antti Pinomaa, D. Sc. (Tech.), Post-doc Researcher, LUT University
After arriving back to Windhoek, the next day Wednesday 5th December 2018, the Fusion Grid research group visited Embassy of Finland as were invited to the Finnish independence day reception.
The Ambassador of Finland, Ms. Pirkko-Liisa Kyöstilä announced that the next independence day reception will be held in Oniipa, where Finnish missionaries started their work 150 years ago. In that reception we had a fruitful discussion with the Mayor of Oniipa, Mr. Mannetjies Kambonde, together with the CEO of Oniipa Town Council Mr. Junias Jakob. The discussion made clear that Oniipa, as a town in the middle of active development, was very interested about our Fusion Grid concept. We received an invitation to Oniipa Town to meet with the Oniipa town council and discuss the topic in more detail. This was agreed as part of the existing plan to start the next expedition toward Northern Namibia during this same trip.
On the next day we had a meeting with Prof. Pio Lumaga and visited the NUST Innovation Design Lab. Prof. Pio Lumaga’s lab could be a good place to do the first setup in Namibia for testing different features and digital services of the Fusion Grid pilot, to run the first tests before going forward to ‘real’ pilot system. After that we went to visit Thomas Mueller from the Rainmaker company, as we met Rainmaker company representative during the first trip to Namibia April. Rainmaker is developing services for tourism and hospitality. They are connected to 300 lodges (out of total ~3000) around the country, and are working on to add the connectivity part to lodges as a business trigger. One lodge was found to be close to Oniipa that could act as a potential pilot site. Rainmaker appeared having interest in our concept and research project, and could provide assistance on the connectivity side with the Nokia Kuha base station. Thomas expressed deep insights about Namibian IT scene and about the communication network statuses in Namibia. Solutions for backhaul can be created via satellite for instance. Rainmaker has connections to mobile network operators, and can be of help in e.g. getting the frequency to showcase and proof-of-concept project.
On Friday 7th December, the 2nd trip started from Windhoek to to Oniipa. We had scheduled a meeting with the mayor of Oniipa and the city council to introduce the Fusion Grid project and concept. Oniipa has just turned (upgraded) from village to town. The town council and the mayor expressed high interest toward Fusion Grid project , progressing quickly towards an agreement to get the Fusion Grid for piloting in Oniipa as soon as possible. We agree the discussions to continue at the end of January 2019 when the mayor is coming to Finland for over a week. Target is to have Fusion Grid pilot up and running and showcased in Oniipa by the next Finnish independence day 6th December 2019. Realistic goal, but work should be started right away. The cost to connect customer to the national utility grid there in areas far from the secondary substations could be as high as 20 000 NB (Nored Grid). Thus, it would be economically more feasible and beneficial to have centralized solar home system in one of the houses in Oniipa, and distribute energy from that to own house and to houses next to it. This could provide new business (trade between the peers), and by this way decrease ones payments. OTC has long term plans for land use as part of town development plan. From the viewpoint of electricity, the plan is that within upcoming 10 years the whole town would be covered with electricity.
In the late afternoon, there was a visit to a Ongula lodge, which operates as training center for surrounding community scheduled. The lodge was not that far away from Oniipa. The location was given by Thomas Mueller. Rainmaker has plans on providing connectivity to the lodge, and further develop the lodge off-grid power system, to serve the increased need for electricity. There were available mobile networks MTC, MTN, Telecom Namibia network, MTN better than Telecom. MTN has fixed monthly payments via satellite connection.
Saturday 8th December the expedition was divided to two as there were too many locations to visit and too little time. Our group drove west from Oniipa to Opuwo to visit a remote local community that has health clinic powered by off-grid system. Our host and contact person to take us to this community was Abraham from Namibia Energy Institute (NEI). Abraham told us the community is just around the corner not far from Opuwo, but it took almost two hours to drive there. Distances seem to be relative. There were panels and batteries used for village health clinic. Lead-Acid batteries, few were already replaced, old ones in the back of the warehouse. Diesel generator to back-up the system. Electricity was used for clinic and personnel’s homes. There it became very clear that there are risks when going to visit these remote locations and talk about that we have this project where the idea is to provide off-grid electricity to remote locations, it generates also the expectations and initial promise that electricity in a form of a pilot system is to be provided to that exact community. And this is the negative thing as one don’t want to give empty promises. But it just proves there are evident need for affordable electricity and lot of remote communities, which most probably will never get the grid connection as utility grids wont reach these areas. Saturday evening we drove back to Opuwo, dropped Abraham there and drove to Sesfontein, where we met again the other half of the other half of the divided research team.
On Sunday 9th, lead by Ms. Helvi Ileka of NEI, we drove from Sesfontein to to Purros area and visited a lodge and the local community. There was a satellite backhaul and a wifi provided to lodge customers, tourists, arranged on a pay-as-you-go basis. Additionally, there was also a mobile school in Purros. The Purros Lodge had used their first set of batteries between 2006-2018. The 48 batteries were arranged in two sets connected in parallel. The old batteries were stored in the back of the warehouse, with no transport to further processing arranged yet. In general, transport is a challenge to these remote locations. The diesel tanks for the diesel generator were connected to the power system for a backup.
The closest lodge “Orubembe” is a 5-to-6-hours drive from Purros lodge. Thererefore, one does not want to have a broken tire while travelling from one lodge to another.
In Purros we experienced a slightly odd atmosphere as we didn’t want to give “empty” promises to the local community to have electricity, but we still wanted to hear about the needs and expectations towards electricity. Therefore, we needed to open up discussion about the Fusion Grid project, too.
We left Purros and the lodge in afternoon and took also two boys to the back of our pick-up car and dropped to their own village, in the middle between Sesfontein and Purros, as they needed a lift from the Purros lodge, where they were on training / working period. This was a practical example how people move and travel between locations in remote areas. There is nothing close to public transport.
On Monday 10th December we drove back to Windhoek, a whole day drive, and started to preparing to our own travel back to home.
As a whole, the trip can be found to be a success. We got the information what we were looking for and even more: improved findings and understanding on the surroundings in such distant locations for off-grid electricity provisioning. Furthermore, we found the very potential site for the pilot in Oniipa with the Town Council backing this goal. Eventually, it was agreed that a pilot system would be delivered there and launched by the next Finnish independence day, the 6th of December 2019. This was considered a challenging plan, but also decided in the project plan. So we started running towards that goal, which turned out to be an interesting marathon with the duration of a year.