By Bryan Schaaf on Dimanche, août 17, 2008.
Denise Green, a Haitian friend and colleague, wrote a blog in November 2007 urging Haiti to go solar. Over the past year, there has been a tremendous increase in coverage of solar energy. With new interest, developments, and possibilities solar energy could make a real difference in countries such as Haiti where oil fluctuations are felt acutely. Haiti is predictably hot and sunny but apart from traffic lights and a handful of schools and homes, it is not widespread. This could change. Perhaps Haiti can learn from the experiences of other countries.
Any discussion of solar power starts with Germany. Germany is the world's single largest producer and user of solar power. The government subsidizes its ues and some cities, such as Marburg, even mandate the use of solar heating panels. Mandating is unlikely to be well-received in either the United States or Haiti. However, 23 American Utility companies took part in a fact finding mission to learn more about how to make solar powers a large part of our utility mix. Every single utility said they foresaw solar becoming more common in the U.S.A. Clearly, Haiti has far fewer resources than Germany. However, Haiti's energy needs are much smaller. The greatest energy needs of an average Haitian family are lighting and cooking. The large scale deforestation of Haiti is largely due to the use of wood charcoal as a cooking source. It is a sad catch 22 that cooking with wood charcoal is neccesary for short term survival, while doing so make survival more difficult over the long haul.
Haitian subsidies are out of necessity focused on food and not solar panels. But India teaches that government subsidies may not be neccesary at all. India has a solar loan program in place that could be a model. In April 2003, a four-year $7.6 million effort was launched to accelerate the market for financing solar home systems in southern India. The project is a partnership between the United Nations Environment Program Energy Branch, UNEP Risoe Centre (URC), two of India's major banking groups - Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank, and their sponsored Grameen banks. This caught my interest immediately as Haiti has a large number of banking groups as well as Fonkoze village banks, inspired by Grameen.
In the case of the Indian Solar Loan Program, UNEP "bought down" the interest rate charged by the banks from about 12% to 5%. The banks continued to make their normal rate of return for a perceived higher risk loan, while the customer paid the lower, more affordable rate. This "interest rate subsidy" was gradually withdrawn over the three-year program. As a result, 10,000 solar loans have been made in over 2,000 villages. UNEP notes one of the strengths of the Indian Solar Loan Program is the qualification of vendors, including a requirement to maintain local service centers. In other words, vendors are reputable and they provide follow up services to those who need them. UNEP has since expanded this program into Morocco, Tunisia and soon Algeria, Indonesia, Mexico and Chile. Given its need, small size, and banking networks, Haiti could be a good candidate country. There are several video clips explaining the Indian Solar Loan Program in detail which can be viewed by clicking here.
Back to the United States. When we think of solar power, we naturally imagine solar cells bracketed on to roofs. However, there are alternatives. A research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has found a way to use the heat-soaking property of asphalt as an alternative energy source. More specifically, the researchers have developed a solar collector that could turn roads and parking lots into common and inexpensive sources of electricity and hot water. Even after the sun goes down, asphalt remains hot. Walk on it barefoot and see. Though this new technology is not ready for prime time, it does illustrate that solar power could potentially be collected in new, creative ways. As one of the researchers noted, “Our preliminary results provide a promising proof of concept for what could be a very important future source of renewable, pollution-free energy for our nation. And it has been there all along, right under our feet.”
In terms of using solar to boost the national grid, Haiti may want to talk a Jamaica. The Miami Herald announced that Jamaica plans to build a solar energy plant in the island's southeast to help reduce its annual $3.7 billion energy bill. Clive Mullings, the Jamaican Energy Minister called it one of the government's most important projects. The facility will be financed through Venezuela's Petrocaribe program, which provides poor nations with cheap oil and money for community projects. The government also expects to mandate island-wide use of ethanol-blended fuel by April 2009.
Algeria, aware that its oil and gas riches are finite, is gearing up to tap solar power on an industrial scale. Work on its first plant began late last month at Hassi R'mel, 260 miles south of Algiers. According to USA Today, the plant will be a hybrid, using both sun and natural gas to generate 150 megawatts. Of that, 25 megawatts will come from giant parabolic mirrors stretching over nearly 2 million square feet — roughly 45 football fields. While Haiti and the Dominican Republic are not in a position to export solar energy, even if they had the capacity, there may be opportunties for the two countries to work together on solar projects.
There are a number of small organizations actively working to increase solar energy usage in Haiti. Since late 2005, World Eco Engineering has been involved in promoting solar power in Northwest Haiti in coordination with DIY Solar Electricity, a British-Based NGO and AMURT - Haiti. The project focuses on the delivery of complete small PV units to areas of Haiti where no electrical power is currently available. Hurah is also involved in setting up solar energy for schools including internet access. You can donate to their solar fund here. Sun Ovens International is promoting solar cooking as an alternative to charcoal. Clean Water for Haiti (CW4H) has established a solar powered water purification system.
Click here to learn how Louverture Cleary School became solar powered. Big Frog Mountain Alternative Energy Sources has been working on doing the same for the Saint Augstine School in Petit Riviere. Haiti Healthcare Partners has been working on electrifying a clinic in Cherident. Correct me if I'm wrong but I could only find one company in Haiti selling solar projects. Most equipment and services seems to be provided from the East Coast of the United States. I noticed Electron Solar Energy announced that the company has been awarded an order for 100 complete renewable solar energy systems for the Haitian Medical industry. The company has already received full payment, which is valued in the low six-figures. The systems will help to refrigerate critical medications and vaccines used to protect children against disease.
There are many video clips on solar energy available online. Current has some interesting clips on solar energy usage in Bangladesh, in Kenya, on the increase in solar plants worldwide, solar powered laptops, solar towers, thin film solar cells, concentrated solar power, solar powered fridges, and many others. TeleHaiti has a clip on how to set up solar panels for household use and also on solar power usage in Israel. Also, if you are interested in solar energy, think about attending the next Solar Power Conference which will take place in San Diego from October 13-16.
Food security, energy independence, and environmental preservation are all tied together for a country like Haiti. While solar energy is not a magic bullet, it could help make major improvements. By this time next year, I hope to be able to write that Haiti is well on its way to going solar. If you know of other organizations promoting solar energy use in Haiti, or interested in doing so, please feel free to post in the comments section below. Thanks!
Bryan
There are a couple points..
1. Haiti has no money. They had none before the quake, and that hasn't improved -- to say the least.
2. I seriously doubt that any outside entity (country) is about to step up and provide Haiti with a brand new state of the art system.
3. A solar system still requires a grid, to operate at night.
So, i doubt if there are any estimates because i don't think there is any possibility of it happening.
The Haitian economy has not been, and is not likely to be, able to generate enough money to pay for, or repay the costs of, such a system.
Light Emitting Wallpaper Could Replace Light Bulbs
Light-emitting wallpaper may begin to replace light bulbs from 2012, according to a government body that supports low-carbon technology. A chemical coating on the walls will illuminate all parts of the room with an even glow, which mimics sunlight and avoids the shadows and glare of conventional bulbs.
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Although an electrical current will be used to stimulate the chemicals to produce light, the voltage will be very low and the walls will be safe to touch. Dimmer switches will control brightness, as with traditional lighting.
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The Carbon Trust has awarded a £454,000 grant to Lomox, a Welsh company that is developing the organic light-emitting diode technology. The trust said it would be two and a half times more efficient than energysaving bulbs and could make a big contribution to meeting Britain’s target of cutting carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020. Indoor lighting accounts for a sixth of total electricity use.
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The chemical coating, which can be applied in the form of specially treated wallpaper or simply painted straight on to walls, can also be used for flat-screen televisions, computers and mobile phone displays. As the system uses only between three and five volts, it can be powered by solar panels or batteries. Lomox, which will use the grant to prove the durability of the technology, believes it could be used in the first instance to illuminate road signs or barriers where there is no mains electricity.
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Ken Lacey, the chief executive of Lomox, said that the first products would go on sale in 2012. “The light is a very natural, sunlight-type of lighting with the full colour range. It gives you all kinds of potential for how you do lighting,” he said.
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Although organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been available for several years, Mr Lacey said that concerns over cost and durability had prevented further development. He said that Lomox had developed a much cheaper process and discovered a combination of chemicals that were not vulnerable to the oxidation that shortened the operating life span of other types of organic LEDs.
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Mr Lacey said the technology could be used to make flexible screens that could be rolled up after use, or carried into a presentation, for example.
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Mark Williamson, director of innovations at the Carbon Trust, said: “Lighting is a major producer of carbon emissions. This technology has the potential to produce ultra-efficient lighting for a wide range of applications, tapping into a huge global market.
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“It’s a great example of the innovation that makes the UK a hotbed of clean technology development.”
PIH Update on Solar Power at Boucan Carre Hospital
Bringing high quality health care to remote rural areas requires not only essential medicines and medical staff to deliver it, but equipment and lighting to see by. In addition, Partners In Health's work with people living in poverty means that we bear witness to the dramatic impact of environmental degradation and climate change on people living in poverty. As a result, PIH is constantly looking for energy sources that are accessible in remote regions and that reduce our impact on the environment. Our partnership with the Solar Electric Light Foundation (SELF) and Good Energies has made both of these goals a reality.
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Until this fall, Boucan Carre Hospital in Haiti's central plateau relied on a diesel generator for its electricity. Then, over the course of three weeks, SELF installed a 10,000-watt solar panel system on the roof of the Boucan Carre Hospital. As part of the project, SELF also conducted an intensive two-week course, training local technicians to install and maintain solar systems. The advanced hybrid system integrates the solar panels with the existing generator, enabling the facility to run off batteries charged by the solar panels most of the time, with the generator as a backup.
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In the short time the system has been in operation, the results have been dramatic. In the month of August 2009, prior to the installation, the Boucan Carre facility consumed 11 barrels of generator fuel. One month later, with the system operating, the facility used just four barrels of fuel.
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We look forward to working with SELF on the installation of solar systems at other PIH-supported facilities throughout Haiti. SELF has also completed installations at PIH supported facilities in Rwanda, Lesotho and at a Village Health Works facility in Burundi.
I just finished building my
I just finished building my own solar panels for my home. I built 3 75w panels in just one weekend for 500 bucks. It's nice having an extra few bucks in the bank each month :) I learned everything with a step by step guide from www.renewable-edge.info
You're completely correct.
A recent study has shown that cost of solar has decreased a good amount recently in the state of California. Of course like computers, as technology advances, cheaper solar options will be available.
Solar is less expensive than a generator in Haiti
Solar electric systems installed in Haiti are currently saving a lot of folks a LOT of dollars that they were wasting fueling generators. At the same time these projects are creating renewable energy jobs in Haiti.
Sustainable development projects require renewable energy sources be included as a part of the building cost from the beginning... in order to be truly 'sustainable' and to ultimately be successful.
Proper system design and installation is essential for any project. Look to NABCEP Certified solar professionals for qualified help.
Solar Solutions to the MDGs (Monya Kian)
Two billion people, a quarter of the world’s population, lack access to electricity. Forget Blackberrys, the latest iPod, or even microwaves; in many areas throughout Latin America, Africa and Central Asia, turning on a light bulb can be impossible.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to see what life without electricity entails when I spent a month in a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees camp in Tanzania to conduct research. As I walked village to village across the camp, I came across a large solar panel, which I was told was purchased and owned by a small group of refugees.
This photovoltaic panel provided the group with electricity throughout the day and into the evening, and safeguarded its women from venturing out in perilous areas – risking being robbed, assaulted, abducted, raped, and even murdered – in search of firewood. The solar panel also considerably reduced the group’s ecological footprint.
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization predicts that 84 percent of Africans will endure wood shortages by the end of the decade. Faced with finite natural resources, rising food costs and the reality of climate change, how can developing countries survive these challenges, let alone achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015?
Perhaps the answer lies in this very statement: the same tools that address climate change and energy-efficiency can be used to promote human security. In other words, solar, wind, and other renewable energy technologies can be employed to respond to climate change and resource-depletion, and as instruments that facilitate the achievement of the MDGs.
Solar energy in particular offers myriad possibilities to constructively address the problems faced in developing countries. Unlike biofuels that can increase the cost of food, solar powered drip-irrigation systems allow farmers to optimize the productivity of plants and crops, reducing the cost of food. This approach advances MDG 1: the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger.
MDG 2 aims to achieve universal primary education, yet thousands of schools throughout the developing world are paralyzed without electricity – 16,000 schools in South Africa alone. Greater reliance on solar energy would offer more students access to lighted classrooms and modern-day technologies such as projectors, photocopy machines and computers.
Rather than spending several hours a day in search of firewood, often in dangerous conditions, women can efficiently prepare foods using solar ovens. Made of simple materials such as cardboard and aluminum foil, solar ovens cost anywhere from $10 to $100, and unlike the incineration of firewood, they do not emit indoor air pollutants. In this fashion, solar ovens empower women, a goal identified by MDG 3.
MDGs 4, 5, and 6: reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, and eradicating HIV/AIDS and malaria would benefit from solar technologies. Thousands of hospitals and clinics in developing countries as well as mobile medical units that can travel throughout remote and rural areas can be powered by the sun; delivering urgently needed medical care. Solar technologies can also disinfect, purify, desalinate and pump water in areas without treatment facilities, which also addresses these health related goals.
Renewable and energy-efficiency technologies are crucial instruments for sustainable development. But as Achim Steiner of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) recently stated, these technologies have often been ignored. “Investments will soon be pouring back into the global economy,” he said. “The question is whether they go into the old, extractive, short-term economy of yesterday or a new green economy that will deal with multiple challenges while generating multiple economic opportunities for the poor and the well-off alike.”
With the Obama administration’s pledge to invest in clean energy and the active involvement of institutions such as the United States Agency for International Development and the UN, renewable energy programs can provide real opportunities for developing countries and a chance to promote peace and stability through global partnerships. These collective activities directly support MDGs 7 and 8.
The lack of clean and adequate energy is a common denominator behind global challenges such as climate change, resource depletion and inadequate healthcare delivery Meeting these challenges should begin by developing more efficient energy production, a strategy that also advances the Millenium Development Goals.
Monya Kian is a member of UNA-USA San Diego and is a certified mediator active in the energy efficiency field. She received a BA in International Studies from the University of Washington, MA in Peace and Justice Studies from the University of San Diego, and holds a Diplôme from L’Institute d’Études Politiques de Paris in France.
Solar Powered "Rent a Light" Program in Kenya
'Rent-a-Light' Seen as a Bright Idea in Kenya
A Kenyan engineer is developing a business with a grant from the World Bank Group and a device called the PowerPack. Transcript of radio broadcast:
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
Charles Rioba is an engineer and inventor in Kenya. He and his company, Solar World Limited, have developed a product called the PowerPack. The PowerPack is a small solar-lighting system. The device is portable, so it can be taken anywhere. It provides light with one or two L.E.D. bulbs. An L.E.D. is a light emitting diode.
But the PowerPack can also power a small transistor radio for as long as six hours. And it can be used to recharge a mobile phone.
How often the PowerPack itself needs to be recharged depends on usage. Solar World says the device is best for a small family, up to three people.
People who want to use a PowerPack can buy one. Or they can rent one fully charged, and also pay to have it recharged. Or they also charge it themselves with a small solar panel. It collects energy from the sun into a solar battery.
The World Bank Group considers the Rent-a-Light plan a bright idea. In May, Charles Rioba was one of sixteen winners of a Development Marketplace competition. They each won a grant of up to two hundred thousand dollars.
The winners were announced at a conference in Ghana as part of a program called Lighting Africa. Lighting Africa aims to provide modern lighting to more than two hundred fifty million people by two thousand thirty. They live "off-grid," unconnected to a national electric-power system, except in some cases illegally.
In Kenya, more than eighty percent of people depend mainly on fossil fuels for their lighting needs. Fossil fuels are oil, natural gas and coal. Burning fossil fuels, however, can cause health problems from indoor air pollution.
The Rent-a-Light project includes about one hundred local agents to supply the PowerPacks and ten centers to service them. The company hopes to reach about eight thousand homes within eighteen months.
Vijaya Ramachandran is an expert at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. She notes that a lack of electricity and a lack of good roads are major barriers to a better life in Africa. In most of the African countries that she has studied, power supplies are cut off for several hours during each day.
And that’s the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. Go to voaspecialenglish.com to find transcripts and MP3 archives of our reports. We will also post a link to a list of all sixteen winners of the Lighting Africa competition. I'm Chris Cruise.
Solar for Haiti
WOW, I am very glad to see that i am not the only fighting out there for my country.Very good idea.
In fact, on one hand---you are trying to implement a solar system in haiti and on the other hand--- i am endeavoring to create a Community Investment Company/organization based on "community project" by showing people with the "very little" that they have, they can build big things.
As a matter of fact, a "Community Investment Network" primary goal is to promote strategic collective giving and community problem solving.
Although we're all aware of the fact that governments can do nothing for Haiti, and we know for a fact that only God has the right and final answer; in the mean time, it is our turn now-NEW GENERATION OF LEADERS- to come up with new options, new thoughts, sit down and search for how possible reliefs can be found, or better decision can be made. Putting our strengh together, educating the people, showing them how to create wealth and how great and significant it is to gather ourselves, our resources, our dreams for this Country. Therefore, i believe you and I, we need to put our hands together-with others of course-to see how we can work this out and make difference. I'm sure we can,....i am very optimistic!
let me know...Ok!
because the unique option we have right now is ... INVESTMENTS and i mean our own Investments . It is time now Haitians learn how to create their own things, innovate, and since Haiti is a so-called "poor country" as they say, we need to do it in COMMON.
Big time for INVESTMENTS !!!!
YES WE CAN, TOGETHER !!!!!!!!!
Energy
The Haiti Connection researches and evaluates information for our web site. We have 2,000 additions! One is solar sources. Marine supply catalogs, and Edmond Scientific have small portable solar panels.
Mark Hare, a PCUSA agricultural specialist with MPP used to have a solar project, make panels from "trash"; will e-mail him.
Can you send the information about the wind turbines?
The Connection has their annual conference October 11-12 in Raleigh. If anyone with experence in energy sources would like to participate in a panel discussion, please let me know.
I would agree that solar is
I would agree that solar is too expensive, especially if you store the electricity in batteries. I've seen a large battery storage system, and a smaller one panel system. I have also seen small wind turbines on the north coast of Haiti that might be workable and more affordable for most Haitians.
need info on solar for haiti
I'm trying to implement a system in haiti... my problem is finding financing for the people... can you give me some ideas
The problem with solar is
The problem with solar is that it is insanely expensive. Americans have trouble affording it. This is because the solar cells themselves require a lot of energy to produce.
Solar is applicable in Haiti on a small scale. I know of a group of Haitians that is buying small panels (maybe 1.5' x 1.5') and a small inverter (like one you'd buy at the store for $50) and running cellphone recharging businesses. Solar can, and will, succeed there.
Large-scale roll-out of solar has proven to be tricky, and extremely costly, even in the US. If Haiti can't get the resources together to create traditional power, what's the hope of doing large-scale solar.
For what it's worth, if that one project has a hundred installations for a low-6-figure cost then they are indeed very small installations.
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