To support the long-term rebuilding of Haiti, Grammy award-winning Reggae band Steel Pulse has donated 100% of the proceeds from sales of their new single Hold On [4 Haiti] to the Solar Electric Light Fund and our “Solar Health Care Partnership” with Partners In Health.
You can learn more about our project at holdon4haiti.org, or watch Paul Farmer explain what we’re doing:
The money will be used to solar electrify PIH clinics in Haiti (see previous story with Larry Hagman).
Steel Pulse have been true to their roots for over thirty-five years. One of Bob Marley’s favorites, the band has maintained a sense of fierce integrity as it strives to get the message of love and unity across to all people. VIBE magazine has called them “the best live reggae band on earth.” British-born Jamaicans, Steel Pulse started their career opening for the Clash, the Sex Pistols and Generation X. They even played at President Clinton’s inaugural celebration - the only reggae band to do so. They are working on a new album and DVD and are currently on tour.
Donate and download the song below, or by visiting holdon4haiti.org >>
There’s a sweet irony watching long-time SELF board member Larry Hagman turn the world renown oil tycoon J.R. Ewing into a conscientious solar executive while retaining his famously wicked laugh.
“Shine, baby, shine,” chuckles a fiendish Hagman as he coins the new energy mantra for our time in a series of advertisements for SolarWorld. He’s playing off “Drill, baby, drill” of course, but few can argue with his message.
Serving on SELF’s board since 2000, Larry walks the talk. In 2003, he installed what is surely the largest residential solar system in the United States, if not the world, at his hilltop home in Ojai, Calif., north of LA. The combined arrays on his property total about 90 kilowatts.
Now with his catalytic involvement in SolarWorld’s advertising campaign, he has leveraged his passion for solar energy to help SELF as well. Through its Solar2World donation program to aid communities in developing regions, SolarWorld donated solar panels to SELF for a Partners In Health (PIH) clinic in Haiti in 2009. After an earthquake devastated Haiti on Jan. 12, SELF was among nonprofit aid groups that SolarWorld agreed to supply with even bigger panel donations to ease the Haiti crisis. Thanks to Larry’s efforts, SolarWorld’s generous donation of 100KW of solar panels will power five more clinics in Haiti. For SELF, this is an integral part of our overall solar healthcare partnership with Partners in Health (PIH).
Thank you, SolarWorld, and thank you Larry.
A lack of power was responsible for a lot of deaths in the first few days [after the earthquake],” writes Partners In Health (PIH) Executive Director Ophelia Dahl in a recent message.
She explains:
With electricity knocked out around Haiti, surgeons were forced to operate on patients using flashlights. Laboratory and diagnostic equipment were rendered useless. Electric water pumps were nonfunctional. Gas generators helped fill the gap. But finding fuel quickly became difficult, and gas that could be found carried price tags as high as $20 a gallon in the days following the earthquake. Many of our clinics powered by gas generators came uncomfortably close to running out of fuel.
As PIH begins to move from short-term relief efforts towards long-term recovery and rebuilding work, finding sustainable ways to power hospitals will become a priority.
Since 2006, Partners In Health has been working in partnership with the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) to provide solar power to hospitals in Rwanda, Lesotho, and most recently, in Haiti.
The first time I met Paul Farmer, he said something to the effect of…“Bob, I’m thrilled about bringing solar power to Rwanda, but what about Haiti? When are you guys going to help us in Haiti?”.
I have the Clinton Foundation, especially Edwin Macharia, to thank for the introduction to Partners In Health. I met Edwin at the inaugural Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in September 2005. Edwin, a brilliant and hard-working Kenyan who at the time worked for the Clinton Foundation, approached me at the conference and asked if SELF could help provide reliable power for a series of rural clinics in Tanzania. That conversation led to a collaboration between SELF and the Clinton Foundation to solar electrify 4 rural health clinics in the Masasi District of southern Tanzania under the auspices of the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI).
Since the Clinton Foundation was also supporting the work of Partners In Health in Rwanda, a program which had just been launched in the spring of 2005, Macharia encouraged me to also talk with PIH about the possibility of using solar energy to power the 5 rural health centers in eastern Rwanda that were being operated by Partners In Health.
Several months later I traveled to PIH’s headquarters in Boston to meet with PIH Executive Director Ophelia Dahl and several of her colleagues. I was accompanied by Jeff Lahl, SELF’s Project Director. Jeff and I went over the pros and cons of solar vs. diesel for powering rural health centers, and explained that while a photovoltaic solution would be more expensive upfront, it would save considerable money over time. Furthermore, we argued, solar would be more sustainable and reliable than diesel. Shortly thereafter, PIH committed to working with SELF to solar electrify their 5 rural health centers in Rwanda.
In July 2006 I visited Rwanda for the first time, just as the first of our solar installations for PIH was getting underway. My trip coincided with President Clinton’s visit to Rwanda. While he was visiting PIH’s hospital in Rwinkwavu, Jeff Lahl and I had an opportunity to brief President Clinton on SELF’s solar solution for Partners In Health.
After the success of Rwanda, PIH decided to “go solar” across the board – at each and every one of their 40+ health centers in Rwanda, Malawi, Lesotho, and Haiti.
In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, we have been requested by PIH to accelerate our timeline for bringing solar power to all of their sites in Haiti. Diesel fuel is already in short supply and will likely become even more difficult to obtain as time goes by. Solar can serve as a foundation for a robust and sustainable healthcare infrastructure in Haiti.
Walt Ratterman—one of the most dedicated and intrepid solar pioneers that I have ever had the honor of knowing—was tragically killed last month when the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th leveled the Hotel Montana in which he was staying. The world has lost a truly great man, solar professional and global humanitarian.
I had heard about Walt for years, but didn’t get to meet him in person until the summer of 2006 when I traveled to Rwanda to check out the first of five solar electric systems that SELF was in the process of installing at rural clinics run by Partners In Health (PIH). Aside from Walt’s deep technical knowledge and experience installing photovoltaic (PV) systems around the world, one of the things that struck me most about Walt was his tireless work ethic. He never seemed to take a rest. Typically up by 4:00am, Walt would spring into action with a series of calisthenics, followed by a checklist review of everything he aimed to accomplish over the next 24 hours. And after a long, grueling day in the field followed by a quick supper, instead of relaxing over a beer or two, Walt would inevitably fire up his laptop and respond to a string of emails and/or do some additional planning for his next project.
A couple of other attributes come to mind when I think about Walt. First, he loved to teach and always took special pleasure in training local technicians and villagers in the basics of PV installation and maintenance. One of my favorite photos of Walt is the one below, which features him and a couple of Rwandans wiring the back of a solar panel.
Second, Walt had a profound sense of kindness and compassion towards those less fortunate and treated everyone with the utmost respect and dignity. He also possessed a fierce sense of social justice, which no doubt helped to fuel his passion to provide solar electricity to some of the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged peoples.
Third, Walt was an avid reader and student of history and world religions. One conversation that I remember fondly was about our common experiences with Tzu Chi, a Buddhist relief organization founded by Master Zheng Yan in Taiwan. Having lived in Taiwan for six years, I had met Master Zheng Yan on several occasions and was familiar with Tzu Chi’s humanitarian outreach in Taiwan and overseas. You can imagine my surprise and delight when Walt informed me that not only had he met Master Zheng Yan but that he had been appointed by her as a commissioner of Tzu Chi in connection with humanitarian work he had carried out in Afghanistan!
Which brings me to Knightsbridge International (KBI), the organization under whose auspices Walt traveled to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 to provide aid to people who were fleeing from the Taliban. As a member of Knightsbridge, a humanitarian and medical aid organization founded in 1995, Walt had journeyed to and provided relief in far-flung places such as Burma, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Sudan, and the Philippines. Some of Walt’s humanitarian feats in the first few years of the new millennium were beautifully captured in Adrian Belic’s 2006 award-winning documentary Beyond the Call about Knightsbridge International.
After completing the electrification of PIH's health centers in Rwanda, SELF asked Walt to assist with addtional projects in Rwanda, as well as to continue working with SELF on the solar electrification of PIH clinics in Losotho and Haiti. Walt also helped us solar electrify a new hospital in Burundi that had been built by PIH's sister organization, Village Health Works.
Walt was, without doubt, the most dedicated and hardest-working project manager Jeff Lahl and I have ever worked with. We would have gladly brought him on full time, but Walt preferred to work independently, to many organizations’ benefit.
He established SunEnergy Power International (SunEPI) to serve as a vehicle for all the humanitarian renewable energy projects that he undertook in remote, rural parts of the world. Since 2007, Walt and SunEPI had been working with USAID to assess healthcare energy systems in Haiti, an initiative which dovetailed nicely with our plans to assist PIH in Haiti. He oversaw our 10-kilowatt installation at the PIH-run clinic in Boucan Carre, helped secure a donation of PV equipment, and involved USAID in the project
For a long time after the January 12th earthquake in Haiti, Walt’s family—along with many of his friends and colleagues, myself included—continued to believe that he had survived the collapse of the Hotel Montana and was patiently waiting for the rubble to be cleared away so that he could refill his water bottle and get back to work. Within days of the disaster, a special Facebook page had been set up by Walt’s family to serve as a conduit for information about search and rescue operations at the Montana, as well as to provide a communications platform for anyone who knew or knew about Walt and wished to contribute personal thoughts and reflections about him or others who were also missing.
Even before the tragedy in Haiti, Walt was a hero to many people around the world, a fact that is clearly evident from reading the hundreds of impassioned prayers and well wishes posted on his Facebook page by people in faraway places whose lives were blessed in one way or another by Walt’s grace, compassion, and goodwill.
It wasn’t until a few days ago that we finally learned Walt’s remains had been found in the rubble of the Hotel Montana. While saddened beyond words by the finality of this news, I am comforted knowing that Walt’s spirit of adventure and dedication to making this world a better place will live on in the thousands of people that he has inspired, and in the dozens of organizations that he has worked with and supported.
One such organization is Solar Energy International (SEI), a nonprofit group based in Carbondale, Colorado that has trained more people in photovoltaic design and installation than any other group that I know of. To honor Walt, SEI has just established the Walt Ratterman Scholarship Fund to support people from developing countries to attend SEI workshops. What a wonderful way to pay tribute to Walt and his lifelong commitment to social justice and the provision of sustainable energy access across the globe.
If you wish to read more about Walt’s legacy and view some of our favorite photographs of him, please check out the tribute that we have posted on the SELF website.
I blogged about the our involvement in Benin in an earlier post titled - Food Security: Using Solar Power to Transform Rural Agriculture in Benin's Kalalé District - noting how we were first contacted by Dr. Mamoudou Setamou, a native of Kalalé. Our hopes for Benin were also documented by Yann Arthus-Bertrand in the The End of Oil, a recent episode of his "Earth from Above" series.
While the results of the project are very encouraging, I want to emphasize that they are just one part, an important one, of course, of SELF's Solar Integrated Development Model.
The Solar Integrated Development (SID) Model developed by SELF is based on three principles:
SELF Help
Solar electrification projects are chosen by the people in rural communities as full participants, acting on their own behalf. The villagers determine priorities as well as the project scope.
SELF Reliance
Solar systems are purchased by villagers through micro-credit financing. Each family pays for its own system and participates in the ownership of community systems, spreading development funds further to help more people.
SELF Determination
Villagers, both men and women, are trained to install, maintain and replicate their solar systems. In addition, a store of spare parts is provided as part of the initial project funding. Local partners are assisted in establishing a supply chain for continuing purchase of spare parts.
Each project flows from the needs and leadership of the community. The community is committed to and empowered by full participation in all project phases including design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
SELF partners with government, corporations and non-governmental organizations to develop and promote additional technologies and systems such as solar-powered micro-irrigation, crop-processing equipment, internet connectivity, telemedicine and commercial applications to help broaden the scope and impact of solar-generated electricity.
A solar electric system provides 20 years worth of energy at a fixed cost. Utilizing the latest technologies, projects are implemented with the most reliable and cost-effective equipment.
Beyond providing the electrical energy source, our Solar Integrated Development Model provides targeted applications, tools and hardware such as LED lights, sewing machine motors, oil expellers, vaccine refrigerators, water pumps, and computers, often through microfinance loans, so that community members have the tools to turn electrical energy into economic empowerment . The goal is not simply that people have electricity; it is that they immediately benefit from having electricity.
SELF's solar installation has made a dramatic impact on the health and quality of life for the people of Bessassi and Dunkassa in northern Benin. But there is much more work to be done. While the immediate next step is to drill wells in each of these two villages - ensuring access to clean, safe drinking water - there are 42 more villages anxiously waiting for solar-powered drip irrigation. SELF conducted site assessments in August 2009 and the wells were drilled in December 2009, with solar-powered pumps scheduled to be installed in March 2010. But we still need to raise money for drip irrigation systems for the additional villages.
Last, but certainly not least, SELF has promised to provide whole-village solar electric systems to each of the rural farming communities in Kalalé. By bringing solar energy to power their schools, homes, health clinics, street lights and microenterprise centers, we can empower Beninese women and their families to lift themselves out of poverty, ensuring a brighter future for all.
Please help us continue empowering the women of Africa, and bring hope to them and their children.
SEE ALSO:
- Saving Sub-Sahara Africa a Drip at a Time Miller-Mccune
- Solar-powered irrigation improves diet and income in rural sub-Sahara DNA
Last week I wrote a short article at Renewable Energy World on what we in the renewable energy community can do to help Haiti. Here’s what I said about our immediate plans:
The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) is already using the sun to power health care in Haiti and is primed to expand its work with Partners In Health (PIH), the NGO co-founded by Dr. Paul Farmer. When the earthquake struck on January 12, SELF had 13 kW of photovoltaic (PV) panels in a warehouse in Haiti, waiting to be installed in two PIH clinics next month. The plan now is to divert those 13 kW to emergency field hospitals that are being set up near Port-au-Prince, the area hardest hit by the quake.
This, by the way, is just the beginning. Even before the earthquake, we were executing on our plan:
We have worked with PIH since 2006 to electrify health clinics in Africa and, just five months ago, electrified a clinic for the organization in Haiti’s Boucan Carre, three hours from Port-au-Prince. This is the first of 10 PIH centers we plan to electrify in Haiti through the SELF-PIH Solar Health Care Partnership.Now, we see a much greater need and of course we feel a much greater sense of urgency to help the community at large as well. We are now working on a far bigger blueprint to help Haiti back on its feet, and will announce details as these plans become field initiatives.
Last year, SELF created its Array of Life program to partner with companies donating solar equipment and/or funding to support this work. Sunpower, Dow Corning, Good Energies, SolarWorld, Solar Liberty, Bosch Solar, Solar Outdoor Lighting and Trojan Batteries are among those already stepping forward. We need more to join us.
My hope is that you won’t allow the tragedy in Haiti to pass us by without getting involved. And as I said in the article, let’s rebuild Haiti, power it with renewable energy and show the world that hope for a sustainable planet can be a reality. Amidst the global financial crisis, staggering global rates of unemployment and failed Copenhagen talks, the renewable energy industry remains a beacon of hope for the future.
Together we can help Haiti light the way.
As the world mobilizes to respond to the crisis in Haiti, our partner, Partners In Health (PIH), is on the ground making arrangements to set up a field hospital. SELF is diverting 13 kW of solar panels to the temporary facility to provide electricity for critical lighting and emergency medical treatment. However, much more help is needed.
PIH headquarters reports that:
Over the past 18 hours, PIH staff in Boston and Haiti have been working to collect as much information as possible about the conditions on the ground, the relief efforts taking shape, and all relevant logistics issues in order to respond efficiently and effectively to the most urgent needs in the field. At the moment, PIH’s Chief Medical Officer is on her way to Haiti, where she will meet with [their] leadership and head physicians, who are already working to ensure PIH’s coordinated relief efforts leveraging the skills of more than 120 doctors and nearly 500 nurses and nursing assistants who work at [PIH’s] sites.
If you wish to contribute to the relief effort in Haiti, we encourage you to support PIH’s work on the ground for immediate assistance to the survivors.
While now is the time to support disaster relief, SELF will continue to work with PIH and the people of Haiti in the reconstruction and continuing economic development of their communities.
In April 2009, the French environmental magazine Terra Eco published a story on the Solar Electric Light Fund, “SELF and the Empire of the Electifying Sun.” That story grabbed the attention of of Vu du Ciel, a National Geographic - like program hosted by world-renowned photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
You may have seen or own a copy of Arthus-Bertrand’s stunningly beautiful coffee table book Earth from Above. Or perhaps you have watched HOME, the documentary about planet Earth (as seen from above) that was filmed and produced by Arthus-Bertrand and made freely available to the world via the Internet.
On November 26, 2009, French television broadcast a 90-minute episode of Vu du Ciel entitled “The End of Oil” which featured SELF’s work in Benin, West Africa.
Here’s the English-language version of SELF’s segment in the program:
I’ve just returned from the COP15 talks in Copenhagen. One of the events I attended was a CNN/YouTube–sponsored debate that featured the following panelists: Yvo de Boer, Exec. Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, NY Times Op-Ed columnist and Pulitzer-prize winning author Thomas Friedman, actor/environmentalist Daryl Hannah, and Bjorn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.
Mr. Lomborg, an environmental skeptic, says he believes in the concept of anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change, but unlike the vast majority of people and organizations who attended COP15, he doesn’t think that cutting carbon emissions is the best approach to dealing with the problem. Instead, he argues, we should invest our time and money helping those who are most vulnerable to the adverse affects of global warming.
In an article (“Time for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming”) that appeared in the Dec 15, 2009 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lomborg states that “money spent on carbon cuts is money we can’t use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/AIDs prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation.”
While I appreciate Mr. Lomborg’s concern for the poor—and yes, it is true that the world’s poorest citizens will, in fact, suffer the greatest from climate change even though they are least responsible for causing it—I do not agree with his reductionist way of thinking. It’s the same old false dichotomy of “the economy versus the environment” argument, repackaged in a different form and for a different audience.
According to Mr. Lomborg, people who are dying of AIDS or malaria, or who are worrying about how they’re going to get their next meal, could care less about global warming. That may well be true, but dealing with their individual plights while ignoring the causes simply perpetuates and compounds their problems. He fails to recognize that unless the rural poor gain access to modern energy services, they will have little hope of ever dealing effectively with the host of ills and injustices that plague their lives.
This point was certainly not lost on Tom Friedman who, sitting right next to Bjorn Lomborg at the CNN/YouTube debate in Copenhagen, astutely countered Mr. Lomborg’s specious argument with the following remarks:
…every problem Bjorn referred to is an energy problem. The school that has no light, that’s an energy problem. A clinic in a remote part of Africa that doesn’t have the capacity to refrigerate medicines, that’s an energy problem. These are all energy problems, and if we, the developed countries, take the lead in driving down the cost of distributed energy, we are solving both problems (climate and poverty).
Watch:
Needless to say, I concur with Tom Friedman, and I am also pleased that I had an opportunity to contribute to his thinking on the subject of energy poverty, a topic to which he devotes a full chapter in his book, Hot, Flat and Crowded. I am grateful to Mr. Friedman for having quoted me in his book, and more importantly, for having articulated to a global audience the indispensable role that modern energy must play in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Thanks to Hot, Flat, and Crowded, people around the world are now familiar with the concept of energy poverty.
Had I had the opportunity to interject in yesterday’s CNN/YouTube debate, I would have described to Mr. Lomborg my recent trip to northern Benin, where I witnessed a dramatic improvement in food security thanks to solar power and its ability to pump water for drip irrigation. Or, I might have cited the example of Dr. Paul Farmer whose organization Partners In Health is now using solar as the primary source of power for its rural health centers in Rwanda, Lesotho and Haiti — where tens of thousands of poor patients are being treated for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other diseases. Or, perhaps I would have mentioned Zwelenqaba High School in rural South Africa, where students are now able to gain computer skills and access information via the Internet thanks to a solar-powered computer lab that was installed last year.
These are perfect examples of how investing in clean, renewable energy for the developing world can not only help mitigate against climate change but also improve the health, education and economic security of some of the poorest people on earth.
At the CNN/YouTube debate in Copenhagen, and again in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lomborg calls for an increase in R&D in the cleantech space as the best way to counter global warming. While I agree that basic research is important, the fact is, a number of renewable energy solutions, including solar and wind, have already benefited over the past couple of decades from dramatic reductions in cost and improvements in efficiency. Solar cells are now being produced for under $1.00 per watt, and new breakthroughs are being announced on a regular basis. Interestingly, the innovations are being driven by business opportunity as much as anything.
Even without further technological breakthroughs, however, solar energy today represents the least-cost option for generating electric power in parts of the world that are not connected to a conventional utility grid.
We don’t need to wait any longer before we help those most vulnerable to the impact of climate change by enabling them to adopt clean energy solutions in their own lives and communities.
It’s time for a smarter—and more holistic—approach to combating climate change. Let’s turn to the sun to help people and the planet.
“I’m lovin’ it”?? There is still hope in Copenhagen. And a sense that our time is running out. The sincerity of the world’s young people is on full display, as Bishop Desmond Tutu observed.
The question I’m raising is: can our governments and our businesses show the same level of commitment?
Earlier, Bishop Tutu had raised the question of how much rich nations are willing to pay poor ones to secure emission cuts. The point he made is that one we have been making for some time now: the fight against energy poverty must be a global priority.
Our position is simple: energy is a human right.
A few days ago, Prince Nasheed of the Maldives eloquently invited leaders to join him in signing a pact for the survival of their low-lying coastal countries, instead of a “suicide pact” at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen. Watch:
