Implement a gravitational water vortex power plant to run a chest freezer used for fish storage with added power storage capacity.

Due to the high cost of expanding traditional electric grids which depend on coal-fired powered plants, reliable access to electricity becomes increasingly sparse as you travel away from any cityscape.

This was the problem I witnessed in Cikurutug — a bustling village in West Java, Indonesia — where a lack of direct access to the grid has resulted in a high reliance on gas-powered generators which are normally only turned on at night to save power.

This made it impractical to have high-powered utilities (such as air conditioners) or utilities that needs to run throughout the day (such as refrigerators). 

For a local fish farm, this meant inefficiencies in storage and preparing deliveries as refrigeration is costly.

From this problem, our mission became to implement a gravitational water vortex power plant to run a chest freezer used for fish storage with added power storage capacity.

(Feb.) Worked with the community in Cikurutug Village to conduct a site survey 

(Feb.) Obtained grant funding from WPI Tinkerbox to develop a functional renewable microgrid

(Mar.) Designed micro-hydro power plant and energy storage system to bring electricity to local farmers

(Mar.-Apr.) Optimized power plant design based on prior GWVPP research

(Apr. - May) Fabricated turbine, battery, and electrical system 

(Jun.) Fabricated power plant in Sukabumi. Groundbreaking June 1st. 

(Jul. 1st) Handover ceremony

360e - Tinkerbox Reflection Video (YouTube)