Eerste serieproductie van Cambodische MoonLight-zonlamp gelanceerd

Kamworks Ltd is the first company in Cambodia which is series producing solar products locally. Last month the production of the MoonLight has started in Svay, Kandal province.

The MoonLight

With the MoonLight, a solar lantern designed especially for the rural Cambodian people, Kamworks aims at generating jobs and reduce the use of inefficient, expensive to use and fire risky kerosene lights. Jeroen Verschelling, director of Kamworks : ‘’With roughly 2 million unelectrified households, Cambodia has a home market that is large enough to allow for a (modest) Cambodian solar industry in the medium term. This would create jobs here in Cambodia, instead of jobs abroad. But also it would allow rural people to find spare parts and repair service, something that is not available with all the imported solar products now. Those imported products are often of poor quality or are poorly installed, thus damaging the reputation of solar energy”.

Festive launch

The festive launch of the MoonLight will be at 3 pm on the 13th October 2009, in Baitong restaurant, Phnom Penh, where the Ambassador of the Netherlands, H.E. Tjaco van den Hout, will hand over the first MoonLights to Cambodian officials and to the villagers that participated in the design.

Phase out kerosene lighting

The MoonLight aims to replace millions of kerosene lights that are still widely used and are costly in use and a major fire risk in the straw and wooden Cambodian houses. The MoonLight costs 20 USD and has 3 light levels (‘’high’’ for reading or working, ‘’medium’’ for eating and socializing and ‘’low’’ for security/orientation during the night). It comes with a small solar cell that charges the internal battery. If charged fully during the day, it can be used for the whole night. Payback time compared to kerosene lamps is less than 1 year. The most distinctive feature of the MoonLight is its strap that allows it to be hung from the ceiling or wall or simply around the users neck.

Participatory design

During the design phase in 2008, the Delft (NL) University design team lived in the Cambodian rural countryside in an off grid location for 4 months. They engaged rural families and used an participatory approach to develop the product. Rural households then selected the final design from 4 concepts which Kamworks then developed into a marketable product.

Awards

The MoonLight solar LED lantern and its designers recently won prestigious design awards: ‘the Feel the Planet Earth CIFIAL Design Award 2009’ and the ‘Toon van Tuijl Design Price’.

The MoonLight offers a safe, affordable and ‘green’ solution for rural Cambodian people and now it is the first solar product that is assembled, in series production, in Cambodia.

Kamworks

Kamworks is a young solar energy company which aims at providing affordable good quality solutions for rural people in developing countries. Kamworks mission is to promote ‘affordable energy for sustainable development’. Kamworks has developed a product range of affordable solar products that is aimed at the rural market in Cambodia. Kamworks currently has a fixed staff of 10 people.

Bron: ingezonden door Kamworks