Africa: safe drinking water for 30.000 people thanks to ENEA and the NGO Health and Development

ENEA, together with the NGO Health and Development is building an ozonization plant for the treatment of  the  Lake Victoria water to make it available to the inhabitants of the village of Sori. The plant will have no impact on the environment because it uses electricity produced with photovoltaic panels.

Sori is a village in Kenya 500 km away from  Nairobi and 15 from the nearest paved road.

The inhabitants live in extreme poverty, with no drinking water and in very poor sanitary conditions.

The ONG Health and Development has been working to improve their living conditions since 2014, with the active involvement of ENEA, which is providing technical support on the water treatment system to be constructed on the shores of Lake Victoria.

Cristiana Testa and Massimiliano De Mei, two ENEA researchers, are working closely with the ONG and the inhabitants, training local technicians on the operation of the system.

Cristiana is training local personnel on the installation, operation and maintenance of eco-sustainable water systems, while Massimiliano is providing technical support for the installation of the ozone water treatment system powered by  photovoltaic panels.

At present the inhabitants of Sori are forced to draw water from the Lake Victoria, store it in cans and carry it by donkey. But the main problem is the pollution of the lake, caused by industrial and domestic waste and animal sewage.

The ozonization plant will dramatically improve the lives of the villagers: 30.000 people will have access to the universal human right of safe drinking water and sanitation, one of the objectives set by the UN Post-2015 Agenda.

In fact ozone, without producing any by-products, purifies water in a short amount of time. Ozone can break down the bacterial load in the polluted water that causes gastrointestinal and skin infections, respiratory diseases and the most feared cholera.

A pier is being built on the shores of the lake Victoria, close to the St. Camillus Mission Hospital, where a suction pump is to be installed, that will pipe clean water up the hill nearby, about a km away.

Next to the pier a control station equipped with an emergency generator was built and sixty-four 250 watt photovoltaic panels, powering the pump, are being installed. Sixty-four additional 250 watt photovoltaic panels with storage batteries -to operate the three 12 g/h ozonizers - and a water purification booster pump will be installed at the top of the hill.

Ozone production is a simple process, based on air coming into contact with an electrical discharge inside the ozone generator. A sedimentation tank, a slow sand filter and two ozonization tanks are also being constructed. A water system will bring drinking water to eight kiosks  located near the local schools, the bus stations and the market.

ENEA will test the system, provided by the company Aersana, at the Casaccia Research Center, to evaluate a possible modification in the ozone inlet system and make the water purification process more efficient.

For more information please contact:

Cristiana Testa, ENEA Casaccia Research Center cristiana.testa@enea.it

Massimiliano De Mei, ENEA Casaccia Research Center massimiliano.demei@enea.it