Three out every four Haitians live without electricity. Even Haitians who do have access to electricity spend a great deal of time in the dark due to frequent power outages, which in turn hinders access to other basic needs like health care, education, sanitation, and safety.

In particular, Port-de-Paix, the capital of the Nord-Ouest Départment (Northwestern Department) of Haiti with a population of roughly 250,000, is greatly impacted by this unfavorable energy situation. The Nord-Ouest Départment is said to be the poorest region of Haiti partly because of the insufficient government and international attention given to the region. The area has a scattered supply of electricity, and numerous households are disconnected from the national grid.

To increase the number of students, individuals, and households with access to clean energy in this underserved region, TMD Solar Outreach—a subsidiary of the Transformative Materials and Devices laboratory at Yale University— in partnership with World Hope Interenational, Shashamane Sunrise and KAYA Energy, is excited to announce the launch of its first solar outreach project in Haiti. The project will install a solar energy system that will power a school in Port-de-Paix and a co-located Integrated Energy Center (IEC) to serve the surrounding community. IECs are solar-powered community centers that can effectively host, provide or facilitate a range of services for individuals in the local community. Services focus on increased energy access and can improve education, health, employment, and ultimately livelihoods for individuals living in the surrounding community. IECs are used actively in developing countries like India and South Africa; in fact, the project follows a model implemented by the SELCO Foundation in India.

The project will provide electricity and energy services to L’école Galilean, a school in Port-de-Paix with 450 students at different grade levels, as well as the community that surrounds the school. The school has no access to electricity, and the surrounding neighborhood experiences ongoing inconsistency with its power supply, leaving students and residents with little to no power at times. The installed solar energy system will power both the school and the IEC. The IEC will provide services like mobile charging, lighting, charged batteries, lantern charging, and Internet hotspot service for rent at an hourly, daily or monthly basis to the surrounding community.

Integrated Energy Centers are designed to suit the local environmental and geological context. As such, as part of the project, preliminary research and surveys will be undertaken in the community to gather information on climate, topography, energy needs and wants, the services that will cater to these demands, and the willingness to pay for these services. Based on research outcomes, the TMD Solar Outreach team and partners will develop a financial model that ensures the income generated from the IEC covers all costs including capital costs, running and maintenance, as well as provides supplementary revenue to the co-located school.

The project will be executed in two phases. The first phase will focus on research and implementation: the former in early summer 2016 and the latter in the late summer of 2016. For the research phase, taking place in early summer of 2016, the team and ground partners will travel to Port-de-Paix to research the community’s basic energy needs, topography, climate, and layout. Relevant information will be gathered through door-to-door surveys, observations, and community panels. This research will inform the structure, model, and services of the IEC. More importantly, it will deepen our understanding of the community and engage its members in the entire process. The goal is to tailor-fit a sustainable IEC for the local community that accurately responds to its energy needs and wants. Therefore, research and the community’s input will be critical to finalizing the IEC’s design.

The second phase is execution. TMD Solar Outreach and its partners will build a 5-7kW solar energy system and an IEC at L’école Galilean. The solar energy system will power both the school and the new IEC, which will be stocked with equipment and services that best serve the community’s needs. 

Goals and Objectives

Our immediate goal for this project is to develop and build a solar energy system that will power a local school and an Integrated Energy Center in Port-de-Paix, Haiti. Together, the school and IEC will serve the underprivileged area of Port-de-Paix, which has limited access to electricity and energy services. Our secondary goal for the project is to develop a transferable model for solar energy system installation and IEC design that will allow us to tailor and install sustainable IECs in many underprivileged and remote areas of Haiti.

Specific objectives of this project include:

• Perform research on the energy demands of the community

• Design a custom-fit IEC to meet the needs of local community

• Install a 5-7kW solar energy system to power a customized IEC and a local school

• Develop a sustainable financial model to cover the costs of running and maintaining the IEC and solar energy system while providing supplementary income to the co-located school

• Lay the foundation for future solar outreach projects in Haiti

• Offer valuable service-learning opportunity to students and professors in Haitian and United States universities

Outcomes

The following outcomes will measure the success of our program:

• A complete body of research, compiled through door-to-door surveys, observations and community panels, that defines the local community’s topography, climate and layout, as well as basic energy needs, services that will cater to demands, and willingness to pay for these services

• Upon completion of solar energy system at L’école Galilean, we'll assess the number of students able to use electricity at school.

• Upon completion of IEC within L’école Galilean, we'll measure number of local individuals accessing clean energy through the IEC

• Completion and implementation of a financial model that ensure project sustainability and self-sufficiency