Thanks to an in-kind grant, announced July 14, from photovoltaic (PV) manufacturer SolarWorld to the nonprofit Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), 100 kilowatts of PV panels will be donated to provide power for five health clinics in rural Haiti. The electrification will support the work of Partners In Health in Haiti and Zanmi Lasante, which operates the clinics. The grant was made through SolarWorld’s Solar2World program, which helps impoverished and developing communities gain access to reliable energy sources for humane needs.

The Solar2World program is most active in Africa. Its PV grants there have supported a water pumping project in South Africa, a computer training center in Uganda, a hospital in Eastern Congo, a vocational training center in Rwanda, and an HIV/AIDS orphanage in Malawi.

According to SELF, the Haitian clinics are in mountain highlands, where grid-supplied electricity cannot reach. The clinics rely on generators for their power supply at this point. But since the devastating Port-au-Prince earthquake in January 2010, the clinics have experienced dangerous fluctuations in terms of fuel availability and costs, and at the same time, they have seen the need for services rise.

“A doctor can’t work without electricity and energy. You need diagnostic capacity; you need light to examine a patient; you really do need electricity to do the kind of work we’re doing,” said Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of PIH.

Prior to the earthquake, SELF was working with Partners in Health in Haiti to install PV arrays at clinics to provide reliable solar power. But in the wake of the earthquake, the organization asked SELF to ramp up its timeline to provide PV systems for impoverished rural clinics. Implementing PV systems at the clinics is a key part of the health care organization’s three-year recovery and rebuilding plan.

The first joint SELF and Partners in Health installation was completed in September 2009 at a clinic in Boucan Carré, Haiti. Partners in Health reported that the clinic’s monthly fuel costs have fallen 64 percent since installing the 10 kilowatt solar-diesel hybrid electric generating system.

“We were very pleased to have been chosen by SolarWorld as a grant recipient. This very generous support will go a long way to saving lives…and at the same time it will help PIH reduce their operating expenses,” said Robert Freling, SELF’s executive director.