Solar Powered Insinkerato

Experimenting with a Solar Powered Insinkerator at 14,000 feet in Nepal



On our second Blackstone Ranch/National Geographic Explorers Innovation Challenge Grant we brought an Evolution 200 Insinkerator (courtesy of Emerson Electronics) to the village of Dingboche (4400 meters) in the Himalayas of Nepal, en route to Mt. Everest. There, on the roof of the Khumbu Alpine Conservation Center, with team leader Dr. Alton Byers of the Mountain Institute, Carolyn Howe of India's Loop Environmental Solutions, and Debbie Marchinkowsky of the GAVI campaign, we installed 400 Watts of Photovoltaic power and two Chinook 200 Watt wind generators along with a vacuum tube solar hot water system. We brought the Insinkerator (and the kitchen sink!) to test running it on the solar electric system, using the solar hot water to heat ground up food waste from the trekking lodges for use, with a heat providing traditional Nepalise composting toilet, with a biogas digestor. The plan is a good one for alpine regions where the trekking industry has provided a wealth of food waste that can be turned into clean, affordable, climate friendly cooking fuel. Yaks traditionally ate the food waste, but the explosion of tourism and the decline of yak herding have created a situation where there is now more food waste than the ecosystem can absorb. At the same time, increased demand for cooking fuel for the lodges has created a situation where the soil binding juniper shrub ecosystem is being degraded and the only alternatives are expensive and hard to transport fossil fuels (kerosene and bottled gas). The insinkerator/food-waste-biodigestor/composting toilet combination gives an alternative to all of these problems. The only problem is that the insinkerator we brought kept overloading both the 1000 watt inverter we brought and a neighboring lodges 1500 inverter. The amperage draw and a possible bad overload circuit breaker caused a resistor in the Insinkerator circuit board to burn out and also burned two capacitors and a relay in the inverter. The lesson learned is to use bigger inverters (a 2000 watt inverter should be sufficient) and to always bring spare parts and circuit boards for servicing and repairing insinkerators in the field. Since Solar CITIES now installs insinkerators with our biodigestors in remote parts of the world, building capacity in Insinkerator repair and in basic electronics and mechanics is a critical piece of sustainable development, and one that we are pursuing.