Solar Jobs & Energy - Village Minigrids in Lesotho

Hello again from Lesotho,

Today I am excited to tell you about a project that Onepower started last year with funding from USAID and in collaboration with Partners In Health.  In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, USAID initiated a relief program intended to improve the ability of rural clinics to serve their constituents.  Onepower proposed to work with Partners In Health, a fantastic organization based out of Boston that operates 7 of the very most rural clinics in Lesotho.  

The 7 health clincs include Nkau and Nohana (Ketane) in Mohale’s Hoek, Tlhanyaku in Mokhotlong, Manamaneng, Methalaneng and Bobete located in Thaba-Tseka and Lebakeng in Qacha’s Nek district. All facilities are located in villages that are off the grid and that will not receive a grid connection over the next 10-20 years, according to projections by the national utility and Lesotho’s Ministry of Energy. The 7 facilities serve a population of 120,000 primarily subsistence farmers, providing comprehensive health care services including out-patient, HIV/TB care, maternal and child health, and family planning services. In an average year these clinics receive 53,556 out-patients, care for 5,100 HIV patients, provid pre/post-natal care for; 3,495 women, and tend 949 deliveries.  Each clinic is actually more like a small compound, with an average of 22 health care staff and 170 village workers each, including staff housing and housing for patients who may have to walk 10-12 hours to reach the facilities.

Since January our team has completed the first 4 of these installations, each representing a unique adventure and challenge due to the rural location of the clinics, the poor access roads, and the sometimes freezing winter temperatures.  For these systems we are using a containerized solution that lets us get the clinics powered as quickly as possible.  You'll see in the photos, when the team leaves Maseru, the truck carrying the container looks like any other shipment, but once they arrive on site, the work begins to dig foundations for ground-mounted PV panels, assemble container-mounted panels, and complete the system wiring that connects that PV panels, the batteries, and the clinic buildings.  On average each of these installations takes the team only about a week!  Although certainly that is not including the time ahead for planning, logistics, and travel (driving to some of these sites can take 10-12 hours in the truck carrying the container!).

I am also including some photos of the construction process, what it looks like inside that container, and the finished product!  So you can see how this really transforms the clinic and how our team makes it happen.  USAID also commissioned a video on the project which I am linking below - it does an excellent job of showing how the process (almost literally) unfolds and how this enables the operations at the health centers.

We are looking forward to getting the last 3 systems installed in the coming months and - over the next 12 months - expanding the minigrids at a few of these locations to the surrounding communities as part of our overall minigrid deployment work.

Wishing everyone a healthy continuation of 2021.

Matt

Links:

• USAID video about Onepower PIH Clinic installations
• PIH Lesotho

Hello again everyone from (now) sunny Lesotho!

Today I am so proud to tell you about a project that our team undertook this past month to help the community of Ha Makebe.  One usually thinks of the rains that follow a drought as a blessing - which they are - but here in Lesotho we got one weekend of exceptional downpour last month that was so intense it ended up washing out bridges across the country.  As you can imagine, this left many communities in a tough spot - including Ha Makebe where we are currently in the last stages of construction.

Ha Makebe actually has two dirt road connections to the main (paved) road, but the community invested the effort last year to fix the grading of the shorter of the two so that they had a much improved (quicker, less wear and tear on vehicles) way to get back and forth.  This rainstorm ended up washing out the bridge on that road (picture attached), leaving the community in a bad spot.  Because of the wide ranging damage, the Government informed them it would be months - at minimum - before this could be addressed.  At that point the Local Council approached Onepower asking if we might be able to help...

As it turns out, we have very recently procured some heavy equipment (for the minigrids construction - with funds from CarbonTrust) that came in very handy for this task.  With permissions from the Roads Department to undertake the repair, we set a goal for ourselves to make sure not only that the bridge was reassembled but also that it would be resilient to any future storm of this nature.

Our team spent about a week of long days retrieving the large rectangular blocks for the walls from the places they had washed down-river, building containment walls, filling with cobble, moving tons and tons (over 100 tons!!) of dirt and stone.  (I am sharing assorted photos of the process so you can picture this!)  The community of Ha Makebe also stepped up, coming to help find the rocks needed and collect them into piles so that the large equipment could transport them to the bridge.  But - in the end - the bridge looks as if nothing ever happened!  You'll see in the last photo the construction crew - Onepower staff and our day labour team from Ha Makebe (the folks who have been helping string electrical wire over the past months) posing for a celebratory photo with the equipment that did the heavy lifting.

This project was obviously a short distraction from making progress on the construction of the minigrid, but it was a project that everybody on our team was proud of - proud of what it meant to be helping the community and proud of our ability to do real engineering on short notice in a challenging environment.  It was incredibly rewarding for me to see how much our team has grown - in numbers, in technical knowledge, and in determinataion.

We are also making excellent progress on construction of the minigrids - having completed the powerhouse (where the batteries and inverters live), the reticulation, installaiton of the transformers, and installation of readyboards (an "instant" circuit breaker box plus light in one) at over 100 of the houses - but I will save more updates on that for the next report!

Wishing everyone good health as we hopefully are approaching the end of this crazy year.

-Matt

Hello everyone from sunny Lesotho,

As we start summer here in Lesotho, things have been very busy at Onepower!  Over the past 5 months we have hired 7 new employees and taken on 3 new energy access fellows (6-month student internships), expanded construction capabilities through purchase of a telehandler, crane truck, and drill rig, upgraded engineering facilities at our HQ including a new plasma cutter, and been awarded two new grants - one from USAID to upgrade energy facilities at 3 PIH health clinics and one from EEP to roll out a new program supporting small business growth in our minigrid communities over the next 2 years.

Perhaps most exciting, however, has been to see the minigrid at Ha Makebe starting to take shape.  So far this year we have mapped out the proposed locations of the poles, held meetings with the community to get feedback, and started to get customer signups.  Teboho, our Lead Electrical Engineer, has been overseeing the construction team of about a dozen community members to mark out pole locations, dig holes, and install each pole perfectly straight.  At the same time, the team is installing grounding wires for safety and stay wires for stability.  This has been a lot of hard work, and I am attaching some photos of the process so you can see for yourself the hard work and progress the team is making.

Now that 100% of the poles are in (over 100 in total!) the team will be starting to string the wires between the poles, the next step toward connecting each household and business to the local distribution network.  In parallel, the manufacturing team at HQ is working on the energy generation module (PV trackers) that will be used to supply electricity to this minigrid.

I am looking forward to continuing to share stories and photos of this minigrid as each pieces comes into place, and for so many of you who have been on this journey with us for quite some time, I hope it is exciting to see the fruits of our efforts coming into being!

WIshing everyone a safe and healthy remainder to 2020 and positive things to come in 2021.

-Matt

Hello again,

From chilly Lesotho wishing you greetings this month in our first newsletter since 2020 upended everyone's expectations.  Here in Lesotho we had a 5-week national shutdown in responsonse to the COVID pandemic in March-May, but as essential services (electricity providers) our team has been busy the whole time.  During that period we kept our minigrid online, worked on some key maintenance to the infrastructure, and developed a training program so that anyone working from home could be improving their skill base.

And since then things have been busy on both of our project fronts.  The Neo 1 PV Powerplant Project supported the reconstruction of a home that was destroyed during a recent storm. The house belongs to a community member in Ha Ramarothole, a widow looking after 8 children.  After hearing about this incident and the context, 1PWR and the Neo 1 Consortium quickly decided to fully finance the reconstruction of the home as a matter of corporate social responsibility. The Neo 1 project purchased all materials and labor to rebuild the home, and the community pitched in with volunteer labour. We are happy to report that the house is now structurally complete and ready for the family to use!

Meanwhile at Ha Makebe Energy Access Fellow Maphoka Seleke conducted a follow up survey for our initial customers who have been connected to minigrid electricity for over a year - the response was overwhelming that electricity has transformed their lives for the better. We are also setting the stage for construction of the full minigrid:  communicating to the community the proposed locations of electricity poles for feedback, setting up a community counsel to manage sign-ups for connections, and putting in orders for all of the components that will be needed.  For those of you who may be interested, in the "links" section I am also sharing overhead footage of Ha Makebe taken by drone, so you can see the site from a bird's eye view.

We expect the next 3-6 months to be incredibly busy with construction at Ha Makebe, manufacturing facility upgrades, and planning for our next 8-10 minigrid locations.  I am looking forward to sharing more in the next newsletters!

I hope everyone is staying safe and productive.  Cheers,

-Matt

Links:

• Ha Makebe minigrid flyover video
• Onepower Lesotho website

Hi folks,

Last week we obtained the construction permit for the full scale Ha Makebe solar minigrid from the Berea district planning office.  We also took a step towards completing the license application process by presenting at a pitso (village meeting) organized by LEWA (the regulator).  By law in Lesotho licenses to generate and distribute electricity must involve a formal public consultation, and the representatives from LEWA, along with chief Makebe and local councilor Zwane, gathered on a sunny Thursday morning and listened to the questions and concerns of the community surrounding the electrification process.  Overall, they found Ha Makebe residents were enthusiastic about electrification and well informed with regards to the commercial arrangements around connection and the unit price of electricity, thanks to 1PWR team's ongoing stakeholder engagement and the pilot connecting the two schools, church and 5 households that we have been operating in a corner of Ha Makebe for the past year.   LEWA had helpful advice regarding the priority of customer care, which 1PWR will be working to provide at a high standard during the coming years of operating the minigrid.  We look forwards to LEWA completing their process - this is the last stop on the road to construction of Lesotho's first solar minigrid and the community and 1PWR are eager to get started!

Matt