Solar Jobs & Energy - Village Minigrids in Lesotho

Hello everyone,

Hoping that all is well with you since our last update.  We have been very busy here at 1PWR so far in 2022!

As you have heard about in previous reports, we have been working hard, partnered with Partners in Health, to upgrade the energy systems at 7 front lines health clinics they operate.  We have now fully commissioned all 7 of those systems (the last coming online in Lebakeng a few months back), but building on this initiative, and with the support of project sponsors (REPP, EDFI, and UN CDF), during the past months we have turned our attention again to adding new anchor customers at each of these sites - using the clinic systems as a seed from which we are expanding the minigrid.

While health clinics were the priority over the past year, we are no making effort to next serve nearby police stations, government buildings, and businesses - again hopefully maximizing on the benefit to everyone in the community.   In Mashai and Sehonghong we quickly built a few kilometers of medium voltage lines to transmit power to the nearest two schools.  These installations are the start of what will eventually reach also the households (over 9000 combined for our 10 minigrid sites under construction right now).  As part of this we had the official Sod Turning for the 10-community project, which was very exciting! There were a wide range of stakholders, including from the local community and from the central government, in attendance - and our team was even featured on TV in Lesotho!

It is incredibly exciting to see this all coming together:  starting from field surveys our team did on foot to map all of the buildings, to software put together by our engineering team to locate poles and lay out the transmission network, through procurement of 1000+ poles and miles of wire, and finally now with customers being added.  The excitement of everybody on the team for what we do is clear in their dedication to the work which is challenging in so many ways - but very worth it.

Sending best wishes for a very safe and happy holiday season,

-Matt