🛠️ How we use impact solutions to benefit girls and women in Ndiaganiao, Senegal (Episode 7) 📏
In Soussoum (commune of #Ndiaganiao in #Senegal), we replaced an imported diesel mill (which wasn't working) with a smart solution, developed and manufactured in Senegal: our connected solar millet mill. 🌾
The development of our mill took many years, depending on Nadji.Bi Senegal's financial health and the funds we were able to invest in Research and Development. 🌱
At the heart of our thinking: electrical optimization and local manufacturing! ⚡
In fact, the question of electrical optimization is the key to success in the solarization of production equipment. 🌞
The problem is clear: the more a device consumes, the more expensive it is to solarize it: you need more solar panels, more batteries, more components, etc. In short, the cheapest electricity is always the electricity you don't need to consume. 👌🏾
However, the various milling and hulling machines available on the market (imported or produced in Senegal) are far from optimized from an energy point of view. 😥
As a 50-year-old miller from Ndiaganiao put it: "Since I've been here, the millet mills have never changed.
In fact, these mills, with their 7.5 kW motors found in Senegal, would require no less than 12 kWp of panels and a very large number of batteries to be solar powered. That's tens of millions of FCFA (tens of thousands of Euros) for a single mill, not to mention the cost of installation, the cost of the building and so on... In short, economically, it's just very complicated 🙈
Therefore, with our chief designer Adama NDOUR and the invaluable advice of Ibrahima GUEYE, we undertook a complete overhaul of the mechanical design of the millet mills.
The result, after 4 successive versions and 8 years of development, is a machine equipped with a 1.5 kW motor that can process 75 kg per hour, i.e. twice as efficient as conventional mills (with 7.5 kW motors that can process 200 kg per hour). 👏🏾
With our hulling machine, also equipped with a 1.5 kW motor, we have developed a real millet processing platform for our Walalma service centers for rural women. ✌🏾
💡 Thanks to our solar and sustainable solution, #madeinsenegal 🌞
Stay tuned for the rest of this great story Walalma 🚀
Walalma: a project of the Nadji.Bi Sénégal, whose "Connected Solar Center for Rural Women - Walalma 2" in Soussoum was co-financed by Agence des Micro-Projets of the NGO La Guilde and the Association Argonne Manengouba
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We reinvented the millet mill