Maltese invention wins another international award

It has very low running costs and operates without the use of consumables

A Hydro-Electric Power Worldwide project by Joe Spiteri Sargent of Fgura has won the National Energy Globe Award for Malta for 2012. The award will be presented to Mr Spiteri Sargent on 5 June to coincide with World Environment Day.

The international jury, chaired by Maneka Gandhi, evaluated 1,175 projects from 115 countries for this environment award, currently the most prestigious in the world. Energy Globe is also conducting a Global On-line Action Day at www.energyglobe.info on 5 June.

The Spiteri Water Pump, a fuel-free electricity generating machine developed by Mr Spiteri Sargent, won the national prize in the Fire category, one of five under which submissions could be made. The other categories are Earth, Air, Water and Youth.

The International Energy Globe Awards, the world awards for sustainability, were an initiative by Austrian engineer and environmentalist Wolfgang Neumann. They have been held annually since 1999 to recognise projects that “make careful and economical use of resources and employ alternative energy sources”.

The Spiteri Water Pump operates under the water surface and harnesses latent hydrostatic energy by a submerged buoyant unit. This phenomenon is naturally present in any body of water, transferring this energy to produce an artificial waterfall, then producing electricity via an existing hydro-electric power machinery system.

By exploiting a combination of the forces available from gravitational pull, buoyancy and the properties of flows within fluids, a tiny energy input is expended to create disequilibria, which converts a disproportionately greater energy release as natural forces restore an alternate equilibrium.

According to Mr Spiteri Sargent, the main benefits of this innovative product are that it has very low running costs and operates without the use of consumables. Furthermore, it can be placed in a large tank filled with water under or above land at any site like the desert, places like Malta with no waterfalls, or in large buildings such as hotels, and it produces energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are no emissions from this energy transfer process.