The Diplomat in Spain article:
The association NGO Rescate and the company Generaciones Fotovoltaicas de La Mancha have set in motion a project for the generation of renewable and decentralized energy in a locality in the southwest of Ethiopia.
Hare is an agricultural town whose 12,500 inhabitants are forced to walk several kilometres to get water, according to information provided by the NGO Rescate. Ethiopia is one of the driest places on earth and the extreme drought that the country is going through this year has caused a food crisis affecting 5.6 million people.
In these circumstances, women and children are the ones in charge of trying to find and collect the water they need for their consumption and for the maintenance of livestock, which is their main source of food. That forces them to walk long distances to get to public wells, something that, in the case of children, prevents them from going to school.
In order to palliate that problem, the NGO Rescate (which has been working in the country for more than 16 years to provide water basic services to the population) and Generaciones Fotovoltaicas de La Mancha (a Spanish SME specializing in the generation of photovoltaic energy and in batteries to storage energy), with the collaboration of the Carlos III University of Madridand the financing of the Spanish Cooperation, have come together to look for a simple and feasible way to get water from deep wells and take it to the town without the need to travel.
The Spanish Cooperation finances a photovoltaic plant to access water that can be used in hospitals or schools
With this objective, they have built solar containers to offer an alternative solution based on the generation of renewable and decentralized energy, without the need of fuel supply or long distance energy distribution networks. That portable solution was installed in March.
The local team of NGO Rescate and the specialized staff of GFM did not only took care of the setting up, they also got involved in the training of the local staff in charge of maintaining what has been baptised as Photovoltaic Plant Julia.
As well as improving access to drinkable water and, therefore, increasing hygiene and salubriousness levels and reducing vulnerability to famine of these agropastoral communities in times of drought, the new system could have other applications. “Connected to a school, for example, or a hospital, it can simply supply energy in places where it is irregular or non-existent”, Moisés Labarquilla, director of Operations and Innovation of GFM, declared.
+info: http://thediplomatinspain.com/en/a-spanish-project-allows-energy-self-supply-in-the-southwest-of-ethiopia/