MUSHERI CENTER, Rwanda — In this remote village of dirt-floor homes, recharging a cellphone has long meant bicycling 25 miles to the nearest town with power, or 4 miles to the closest charged-up car battery.
So the excitement was palpable when aid workers showed up recently with the first test model of what may prove to be an energy revolution for Africa: the Freecharge Weza, a foot-pedal power generator.
Originally created to give an emergency kick-start to stalled boat engines, the sleek little South African-designed machine, pumped with one foot, can charge a cellphone battery in five minutes or a car battery in half an hour. The device's creators, who plan to distribute it across swaths of Africa far from the power grid, hope it will jump-start development efforts as effectively as it does dead cellphones.
Residents of Musheri Center, fit but fatigued from bicycling long hours for power, saw the machine's advantages right away as it charged not only a batch of cellphones but also the car battery that runs the village hair salon's stereo and electric hair clippers.
"I was using two legs. Now I can use only one!" enthused Frank Rwagafirita, 35, a community leader, as he stomped on the machine's foot pedal while perched on a tilting chair. "It's more relaxing."
Rwanda, like most African nations, has a serious shortage of power. Less than 5% of the country's 8.4 million people have access to electricity, and even in Kigali, the capital, outages are a regular problem.
To power their radios, stereos and cellphones -- now ubiquitous in Africa -- most people turn to car batteries. But even those need regular recharging, necessitating long trips to the nearest electrical outlet.
"You often find people walking from village to village with a car battery perched on their head, going to get it recharged," said Technology Director John Hutchinson, a South African engineer who helped create the Weza for Freeplay Energy Plc.
The Weza, which means power in Swahili, is designed to eliminate that waste of time and human energy and provide power wherever it's needed for whatever people would like to do -- run an electric sewing machine, charge an electric fence, power emergency medical equipment or light a home at night so children can study or midwives can help in a delivery.
