Warm Heart needs to go solar to cut our negative impact on the environment. We grow our own food, the programs we promote help reduce greenhouse gas and PM2.5 emissions, improve public health & reduce rural poverty. But we still depend on traditional power, power that is generated with coal and increasingly with Mekong River killing hydro! The minute we go solar and get off the grid, our weight on the environment is lifted, and our children will have a stable power source for online learning.
Public power operates on a "hub and spoke" system. Power is generated at the hub and pushed out to the edges where we are located. The long lines shed power with every kilometer, with a 25% "line loss", which we pay for. This causes us to suffer from daily power outages that inhibit our ability to work and for our students to study online. As community needs grow, environmentally unfriendly sources (coal and Mekong river hydro dams) are tapped by the power company to try and meet demand,
Given the increasing rural demand on the power supply, we believe the only way to solve this problem is to convert to solar power, starting with Warm Heart. This will lower the strain on the grid. We will save $6000 of our annual budget; money that could be redirected to foster our other programs. Solar power also reduces greenhouse gas emissions which subsequently improves public health.
Going solar will cut our contribution to Greenhouse gases and PM2.5 smoke particles emitted by the current production of public electric power. Just as important to us it will eliminate the hours of downtime we suffer from power outages. When other local organizations follow our example, the reductions in GHG and PM2.5 emissions will be commensurate, as will the cost savings and improvements in public health. Harnessing the sun for our power is the best option for us and our community.
