- A rural renewable energy project in Sierra Leone is improving the lives of rural inhabitants.
- The project which has seen the deployment of 90 mini-grid systems in 50 communities across the country.
- The project is projected to benefit River 300,000 people living in rural communities.
Sierra Leone, one of the epicentres of the 2014 Ebola epidemic, is looking to bolster its recovery efforts with renewable energy. As part of the Government’s post-Ebola recovery efforts, launched a Rural Renewable Energy Project to strengthen the energy infrastructure in rural areas. It is expected that this project will improve the provision of essential services to over 300,000 residents.
The £34.5 million ($47,07 million) project funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) was completed in several phases over a four year period. The first phase – completed in July 2017 – saw the installation of solar power at 54 community health centres across 12 districts of Sierra Leone.
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The second phase increased electricity access to households, schools and businesses in 50 rural villages via mini-gird systems. A renewable energy developer, Systems Sunlight installed over 2,200 Sunlight battery cells for 90 solar hybrid mini-grids systems for the 50 communities.
Systems Sunlight’s acting sales director, Dimitri Panagiotou, commented: “The innovative design of our batteries provides outstanding performance for cyclic and hybrid installations. This is largely through the use of tubular positive plates, a GEL form of electrolyte, a unique sliding pole design and a special alloys composition offering a 60% depth of discharge (DoD) life cycle of up to 2500 cycles for 2V cells and 2000 cycles for the 6V and 12V blocks installed.”
By strengthening the energy infrastructure, this project ensures the provision of improved services to the country’s rural inhabitants and prepares them in any future epidemic. Local health centres have reliable supply to provide health services even at night.