The feasibility of solar water-pumping in a rural village of Malawi

Though Malawi has achieved and exceeded the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) water target, over half of the people in the rural areas collect water from boreholes or rivers. In spite of boreholes qualifying as improved water sources, studies show that the drinking water from these sources was contaminated and likely to cause disease. Other potable water problems include long distance to collect water and gender disparity in that the majority who collect water are women. As for hand-pumps, they are manually straining and most of them break and are not repaired sometimes even for minor faults; which makes the people resort to collect water from their previous contaminated water sources. Electric-powered pumps can play a significant role in the provision of potable water either by increasing the depth of well or by purifying water obtained from shallow wells or rivers. With no grid electricity in most of the rural areas, vulnerability to oil prices, depletion of fossil fuels, and high maintenance cost of diesel systems; Renewable Energy Technologies provide a viable option. A techno-economic feasibility study was carried out for a case study village: Nlukla Village, Chiradzulu District in Malawi. Results show that with the favourable sunlight conditions a solar water pumping system is a viable option for the area. The study is ongoing and future studies include working towards addressing the issue of high initial costs and how to make the system sustainable.