It Takes a Container to Power a Village

Meriam Sesiu and her colleagues operate a clinic in Lesotho’s Maluti mountains without reliable electricity. An old, dirty, and often unreliable diesel generator is the only source of power, and the air and noise pollution it produces is extremely unsettling for Meriam and her patients.
Yet when the lights go off and the generator doesn’t work, night-time emergencies can turn into nightmares . . .
This clinic in Manamaneng is typical to sub-Saharan Africa where over 60 percent of health facilities do not have access to reliable electricity. As part of the U.S. Government’s COVID-19 response, Power Africa awarded over $2.6 million in grants to electrify health facilities, allocating funds to nine solar energy companies to provide urgently needed off-grid power to over 250 rural clinics run by people like Meriam in Lesotho and eight other sub-Saharan African countries, primarily in isolated areas beyond the grid.
Lesotho-based OnePower is one of the nine grant winners. Through their grant, ingenuity, and grit, their team drove a containerized solar power solution from Cape Town, South Africa, into Lesotho and across the Maluti mountains to bring clean, reliable power to Manamaneng’s clinic.
This video shows what it takes to get power to a remote African village, and captures a #lightson, ‘silent power’ moment with Meriam.
Read more on our blog: powerafrica.me...