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Typical household wiring arrangements include many exposed conductors
that pose risk of fire and injury to family members.

Electricity in a Tibetan Village: Wiring Installation at Wayao

By Wu Bangfu and Pamela Logan

Aug 11, 2006

Contents:

        * why is Kham Aid doing this?

        * electricity in a typical village: where it comes from, how it's used

        * work performed by Kham Aid in Wayao Village

        * what it costs to rewire a house

        * the future of electricity in Wayao

As part of our work to protect Tibetan cultural heritage, a Kham Aid team lead by Wu Bangfu replaced dangerous wiring in three ancient houses and one

monastery in Wayao Village, Sha-de Township, Kangding County  The three houses (plus one other) were also supplied with fire extinguishers and

family members were trained in fire extinguisher use. The problems we encountered in the course of replacing wiring are typical for electrified

villages in Kham and demonstrate how modernization and improvement of living standards for rural people is held back by poor quality electrical service.

It should be mentioned that many, many villages - especially those in remote areas - do not have any electrical service at all.

General description of village electrical service

The electrical power in Wayao Village comes from a mini-hydropower station which has been running for more than 20 years under bad maintenance and has been overloaded for a long time. It provides electricity to seven villages in Sha-de Township as well as other townships such as Pengbuxi.

The unbalanced load distribution causes the output voltage to vary within a large range, with an output voltage typically between 40V and 280V. In China, household appliances normally run on 220VAC; however, none of the customers in Wayao can use standard household wiring, for it is impossible to obtain this standard voltage from the hydropower station. Most families have two positive wires and one neutral wire, so that they can use the two positive wires together to increase the available voltage. Sometimes, even with two positive wires, the output voltage still does not reach 180 volts. If you use any other arrangement your appliances won't work at all. Some families don't even have a neutral wire.  Such conditions are virtually unheard of in the developed world, but are common in rural China.

In Wayao, like most places in rural Kham, people do not use many electrical appliances.  A typical house has 3-5 bare light bulbs hanging in different rooms, a radio/tape player, and a television set which is typically protected from voltage fluctuations by a power regulator.  Most houses also have a satellite dish to provide TV programming, for the mountains of Kham make it impossible to receive broadcast television.  There is not enough power to operate any sort of heating appliance such as a stove or electric blanket.  In Wayao, heat comes exclusively from burning wood in a stove or fireplace. This creates deforestation and air pollution both inside and outside the house. In addition, it is inconvenient for users which in turn contributes to poor hygiene and health problems in rural areas. 

In Wayao village there is only one electrician, Mr. Dzandui. Some time back he received training in Kangding for half a month, although his training was limited to outdoor wiring - i.e. cabling that brings power from the main line to each individual house.  Even though Dzandui does have this training, the outdoor wiring in Wayao is in chaos - which is probably more due to the efforts of many village do-it-yourselfers than is Dzandui's fault. At any house in Wayao you can see lots of wiring mess both inside and outside, with many bare wires twisted together, low-hanging cables, fraying insulation, and other hazards.  What's perhaps even more dangerous: we found no fuses in any house we visited. 

Altogether the poor electrical wiring poses a very serious danger of fire. Apart from the very real danger to residents, the wiring also endangers Wayao's ancient houses.  It also poses a risk of electrocution to Wayao's residents, especially small children who are prone to grab anything they can

reach.

Work performed by Kham Aid

Kham Aid can't rewire all of Tibet, but we do have a mandate to protect architectural treasures, so we purchased spools of electrical wire and other components for the four ancient houses of Wayao.  We invited Mr. Yin Longhe, a skilled electrician from Kangding, to replace dangerous wiring with new, properly installed systems.  Mr. Yin trained residents of the old houses and Dzandui on proper installation of indoor wiring. Dzandui proved to be an able student and learned the new skills very quickly. 

With this training we hope that knowledge of proper electrical practice will spread throughout the village.  In addition we trained residents of the old

houses who, through our program, gained basic knowledge of basic safe wiring work. 

 

Like most houses in the village, Dendrob's and Gelek's old houses have two positive wires and one neutral wire, so that they sometimes use two positive wires to guarantee sufficient output voltage. We helped them change the many exposed conductors and broken wires to a safer and more standard system. We kept the two positive and one neutral wire so that they can adjust the voltage as needed. We also installed fuses and switches in the houses, and fastened up cables to keep them safely flush against the wall instead of hanging loose and low as they did before.         

In one house where we worked there was no neutral wire at all. In an effort to guarantee safe electricity, we strung a neutral wire to his house. This was in addition to the other work we did to improve the indoor wiring.

At Wayao village's small monastery the wiring was very complex, with only two positive wires and no neutral going into the building.  Because the power lines pass through - and are used by - two other houses on their way into the monastery, disconnecting and changing the power was going to be very complicated and it could not be done in the time we had available. Thus, at the monastery we couldn't do more than installing two lights and switches in the two stories of the main (and only) temple.  The rest of the work was deferred until our next visit to Wayao which will take place in October.

One ancient house was not re-wired by Kham Aid's electrician because the owners wanted to do the job themselves.  So we purchased some electrical wire and parts for the two families. We also asked the village electrician to be available to help if needed.

Cost of this work

In total we spent 500 yuan on labor and about 2000 yuan on parts for four large houses and the one monastery.  This works out to about 400 yuan per house, or about $50.  We feel this is a worthwhile investment to protect both people and architecture.

Wayao's Electrical Future

A very large hydro-electric plant has been planned for the region, far in excess of local needs, with the main purpose of exporting power outside.  If and when this dam is built it will flood a number of historic villages and fertile farmland, shattering communities and destroying livelihoods at the same time as it submerges sites of archeological and cultural significance. So far, opposition by local people and a prominent local lama has stalled its construction. A smaller, far less damaging hydroelectric plant is under construction and is expected to come on-line by the end of this year. This will go a long way towards alleviating Wayao's power shortage.

 

Conclusion

We will never know what catastrophes our electrical work has averted, but the improvement in electrical system appearance and function was very much welcomed by the Wayao families.  The training, too, may prevent disasters in other village houses.  This electrical work is just the beginning of a major program in conservation and repair of Wayao's ancient houses.  We have a long road yet to travel before our work is complete.