Georgekutty Kariyanappally’s photo voltaic powered innovations — poultry incubator and cargo automobiles— are enticing alternate options to fuel-run expertise
Kochi-based entrepreneur Georgekutty Kariyanappally, a pioneer in renewable power in Kerala, has labored with solar energy for 21 years. He needed to postpone his plans to ship solar-powered automobiles to the Rotary Club of Vasco in Goa for the Food on Wheels programmeto July.
In 2014, when the electrical automobile (EV) was launched in India, George travelled to New Delhi to gauge its potential. Later he purchased 15 passenger auto rickshaws and transformed them into cargo utility automobiles. The Food On Wheels has a kitchen unit comprising a burner and a dosa thattu, an almirah and solar-powered LED lighting. With an on-road value of ₹ 3,30,000, it could run for as much as 80 kilometres on full cost. He additionally has plans to introduce a solar-powered fish-vending unit and a photo voltaic energy-run freezer.
Georgekutty Kariyanappally, Founder Lifeway Solar Devices Pvt Ltd.
George’s journey on this various power subject started with the photo voltaic lantern. In 1999, he returned to Kerala from West Asia to hitch the Malayalam each day Rashtradeepika. As its GM, advertising and marketing, he provided newspaper brokers photo voltaic lanterns as an incentive. “I saw the product made by Photo Energy, Hyderabad, and felt it had good potential.” In reality, he was so impressed that he resigned from the newspaper and have become a distributor for the corporate in Kerala. Soon, he discovered somebody domestically who may replicate it and “began manufacturing it”.
George based Lifeway Solar Devicesin 1999 and was among the many first in Kerala to supply a photo voltaic gadget. He additionally recruited 10 ladies from Kudumbashree, the Kerala authorities’s initiative to kind neighbourhood teams to empower ladies, and located them “highly efficent”. He grew to become the founder-secretary of Kerala Renewable Energy Entrepreneurs and Promoters Association (KREEPA), now an permitted company to advise the Agency for Non-conventional Energy and Rural Technology (ANERT) Government of Kerala.
George additionally started to consider offering employment to folks in rural areas, since he got here from Kuttanad, well-known for its backwaters and paddy cultivation. Coincidentally, he was with the director of Ernakulam Welfare Centre, Ponnurunni, when the latter acquired a grievance of a poultry farmer dropping 100 eggs when the incubator stopped working as a consequence of an influence failure. That led him to discover if photo voltaic power could possibly be used to energy incubators; “We have to sustain 38 degrees heat and 60 % moisture in the incubator for 21 days for the chicken eggs to hatch,” explains George. He constructed an area mannequin —-first made with metallic and later modified to fibre glass — which he displayed at an exhibition on Marine Drive, Ernakulam.
Thereafter, George met an IIT Madras professor and after incorporating the enhancements he advised, showcased the mannequin at an Innovations Meet at IIT Madras . There, he recollects, “I used to be requested, ‘What impact does this machine make in the social fabric of India’? He responded with a three-page essay arguing {that a} photo voltaic poultry incubator would allow illiterate, unemployed homemakers to avoid wasting ₹800 per 30 days in the event that they took up yard poultry farming with his100 eggs capability Solar Poultry Incubator. His defence carried the day and his innovation received funding from by L RAmp (a joint initiative of IIT-Madras, the Rural Innovation Network, and the Lemelson Foundation, USA)
Following this, George arrange a photo voltaic poultry incubator manufacturing unit in 2007 . The first order for 50 items costing ₹35,000, got here from Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh was adopted by orders from all Krishi Vigyan Kendras throughout the nation. The incubator discovered its method to Meghalaya, Jharkhand and different distant corners of India, with George personally introducing farmers to the machine and the chances of solar energy harnessing strategies.
At the ‘Engineering in Agriculture’ meet performed in New Delhi by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2014 , his photo voltaic poultry incubator expertise attracted representatives from Ghana and Zimbabwe and that opened doorways for BackYard Poultry farming in African international locations.
In February 2021, he went to the distant islands of Sunderbans, the biggest mangroves on this planet, for the set up of his photo voltaic poultry incubators for the islanders. “My work in solar power has enabled me to help people improve their lives. I am blessed to have worked with Baba Amte in Indore, in Maharashtra and touched hundreds of human lives struggling to survive, especially in this pandemic,” he says.
