MALAYSIA, Long Lawen Village, Borneo - July 2001
Micro-hydro energy system
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The village of Long Lawen is located in Sarawak, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Borneo, the third largest island in the world, is home to the oldest, most biologically diverse tropical rainforests on earth. Like many remote island villages, Long Lawen is primarily dependent on diesel generators to provide electricity. Diesel fuel is very expensive, noisy, pollutes the air and is extremely inconvenient to obtain. Seacology has provided funding to the Borneo Project in cooperation with Green Empowerment to enable Long Lawen to utilize micro-hydro technology. This technology harnesses the power of small streams that have significant vertical drop to generate electricity. Because the equipment is small scale, electricity is produced with benign environmental impacts. The micro-hydro project at Long Lawen is providing 12 kilowatts of electricity 24 hours a day for lighting a school, a local clinic and the refrigeration of medicines. It will save the community thousands of dollars annually in diesel fuel costs and will serve as a model for many other island villages.*
For more information regarding the micro-hydro energy system, please see the Spring 2002 Seacology newsletter.
UPDATE July 2004 - The micro-hydro system continues to provide clean, quiet and renewable electricity for lights, small appliances and agricultural processing for the villagers of Long Lawen. The system is in solid repair and operating at full capacity. The villagers have learned how to perform the day-to-day operations, maintenance and repairs to the system, insuring its continued success. The local government has accepted and registered the community's plan to prevent logging in the watershed above the system intake.
*Support for asterisked projects is provided fully or in part by the
Nu
Skin Enterprises Force for Good Foundation
