About me - Magi Matinga

My interest in sustainable energy issues dates back to 1996 when as an undergraduate I worked on appropriate household energy technologies and later led a research team investigating benefits of renewable energy on the environment in Malawi. For my BSc (Mechanical Engineering) project in 2001, I worked on a design of a micro-hydro turbine, which has been installed in a village in the northern part of Malawi. It was made from scavenged metal from companies that were closing down due to an increasingly regressive economic and investment climate. Some work is still needed on this, hopefully, with the more appropriate materials this time. All this work was done whilst I was attached to the Malawi Industrial Industrial Research and Technology Development Centre. In the same year – 2001 - I joined the African Research on Energy Policy Network (AFREPREN) and was contracted as Principal Researcher on an energy sector reforms study. The study culminated into a research report which is to form part of a book on power sector reforms in Africa.

My Masters degree (2002-2004) at the University of Cape Town's Energy and Development Research Centre (EDRC), now called the Energy Research Centre (ERC) exposed me to the critical issues in energy and further fuelled my passion. My thesis is entitled "Supply and demand side benefits and costs of low cost urban electrification- A case of Mbayani township". One of its key findings is that even with subsidised electricity connections; poor households will continue to use fuelwood and charcoal due to high costs of appliances, multiple functions for charcoal or firewood fires, cultural preferences and others. In poor urban areas where micro-enterprises are wide spread, energy services for income generation are very crucial. In Mbayani in particular, households expressed a desire for graduated capacities to enable such income generating activities as welding for those with the necessary facilities as well electrification of their business premises whilst still including the poor who then stay on low capacity until they can move up. Part of the thesis was presented at the 2004 Domestic Use of Energy Conference in Cape Town. It was also presented at the Slum Electrification Workshop hosted by ESMAP, USAID, COELBA, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Cities Alliance and Electricité de France in 2005.

Between 2004 and 2005 I worked with Dr Grant Ballard-Tremeer on a number of Eco Ltd, Hedon and Sparknet projects. This work moved me beyond technology and electricity sector policy and I started thinking more about the deeper social aspects of energy and its interactions with everyday life. Health, productivity, education, the production and others. One thing this did for me was that its started me thinking about the use, usability and effectiveness of the knowledge we generate as researcher. Another project that was special for me was the testing of an ethanol stove, designed and developed in Malawi, which has vast poverty alleviation potential whilst providing a clean renewable energy.

Somehow, I am now teaching at the University of Twente. I am what they call docent here. I am hoping that here I will combine my other passion in life – health - with energy.

Please, visit the forum and read my first contribution to the forum on the Energy and HIV-AIDS page. You can also give your comments to the article on Food Security and Energy.

See my latest article on Public Private Partnerships

edit this page

Page created: 18 December 2003; Last edited: 03 May 2006; Version: 9
Knowledge Bank text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Pagename: User:MargaretMatinga @HEDON: FMAA

About me - Magi Matinga

Highlights