It’s a completely raw landscape. Getting power and water on-site is our first challenge! We’d love to run on coconut oil if we could, power our lives with a clean combo of sustainable solar, wind and hydro, as others have…
Maverick: Claude Graves
In meeting Claudia Graves the intrepid surf explorer and creator of Nihiwatu, the worlds leading ‘Eco’ resort in Sumba I learnt how he’d powered his many change-making projects with coconut bio-diesel! Shame then, there’s only a handful of palms around for us to harness!
In the Congo, Emmanuel de Merode, the chief warden of Virunga National Park, the bravest man I have ever met, had a master plan to empower the region. With Hydro harnessing raging waters, the results will continue to power change for generations. But sadly our river isn’t the Congo.
In Rwanda, I met with a tin foil covered Volcanologist who’s thermal exchange ideas broke new ground. and although there’s a volcano in our backyard, powerful local beliefs make exploring this novel route wholly inappropriate and even more unrealistic.
We want to be Green: A Romantic notion perhaps but who knows!
I’ve looked around and as yet, no one beyond smallholdings has made the leap to going fully ‘Off-Grid’. Even the greenest of green business, of any scale, fall back on gen-sets and overhead cabling that, invariably lead back to coal-fired power stations. So what to do?
Blue Sky Thinking: Reality Check!
A realistic Solar system, one that could supply enough energy to power our lives, would require around 25 panels… and a giant bank of expensive batteries that have to be replaced every two to three years. The setup and continuing costs of any system we know of or can source here are just too expensive…
If we could afford to pay our electricity bill for 15-20 years in advance… We would invest in solar now. That’s the equation!
Among our friends, there are those who specialise in Eco-Solutions. So who knows what the future might hold as we are certainly open to pressure testing systems here in the hills. For now, we need a temporary solution fast… So we have reluctantly turned to the simplicity of just ‘plugging in‘.
Not so easy if you are miles away from the nearest power-line!
It took a herculean effort headed by Ketut: Tracking across kilometres of wild terrain, the erection of a truckload of telegraph poles and the unravelling of nearly a mile of cable, but we are finally ‘connected’ with enough power to drive the project forward.
It’s an interim solution, a hardwired backup, as we continue to look for greener more sustainable alternatives.
In Pictures
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