Domestic and Drinking Reservoir with Renewable Energy - Bavelli (D2Re-B)

Tribal village of Baveli in Wayanad District, Kerala State, India

The project team consisted of 25 members of different IEEE membership grades from the IEEE Kerala Section SIGHT Group, the IEEE Kerala Section, and the GEC Wayanad Student Branch and its SIGHT Group.

This project mainly focused on designing and implementing a solar-powered water plumbing system (with an indigenously built water purifier) with street lighting in the tribal village Baveli of approximately 200 residents in the Wayanad District, Kerala State, India.

Water is a basic necessity for human life. But as per global statistics from 2020, as many as one-in-four people do not have access to safe drinking water. The project team identified such a region with a lack of clean drinking water where the residents had to walk daily to the closest river for the water for their household needs.

As part of the planning stages of their project, the team collected and tested water samples from the river and the results revealed that the water was contaminated by bacteria. This indicated that it would need to be filtered before drinking. Thus, along with rectifying the situation of easier access to water, the team installed a coarse and UV filter system and storage for drinking purposes alone. Ultimately, the solution consisted of a solar-powered water pump with two 2000L tanks for storage, a filter system specifically for drinking water purification, and an additional 1000L tank for the storage of the purified water.

After the installation, 24 families with more than 110 community members were using the water system and reported that they are pumping water twice each day. Residents shared that they were relieved to be freed from the hardships of fetching water from the river for their domestic and drinking water requirements. The system has been pumping an average of 4,000 liters of water each day.

The project was done in an eco-friendly manner avoiding the use of plastics. The team also worked within the concept of absolute energy utilization: when the water pump is not in operation, the solar energy generated is used to power a street lighting system with the excess stored energy.

The control system was designed in such a way that any local resident can operate the system easily and has multiple working options. The regular monitoring of the system and its maintenance, however, has been taken on by the IEEE GEC Wayanad SIGHT group as almost five student volunteers in the project were from that Group.

According to the project team, “D2Re-B is a real example of how to professionally upskill the engineering student community technologically, to work for the benefit of the underserved, right from the situation of identifying the exact problem faced by the community, devising a sustainable solution and finally implementing it, thus adhering to the actual objective of IEEE.”