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SOLAR LANTERN PROJECT IN RURAL SIERRA LEONE
Smart-Villages, West Africa Regional Workshop
Accra, Ghana
May 24, 2016
Kelleh Gbawuru-Mansaray
National Project Coordinator
UNIDO Sierra Leone
Project Highlights
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Project Title Solar Lantern Project
Countries Sierra Leone, India, Lao PDR
Village Kychom, Kambia District, Northern Sierra Leone
Implementing Agency UNIDO
Sponsor/Donor Government of India (GoI)
Sustainable Development Goal Target 7.1
Project manager Rana P. Singh
Project Coordinator Kelleh G. Mansaray
Project Status Ongoing
Project Period 2012 to Present
Main Partners The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI), India and
Sunlabob Renewable Energy Ltd., Laos
Counterparts Sierra Leone Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Trade &
Industry and Ministry of Local Government
Project Overview • Rural electrification forms an integral part of Sierra
Leone’s overall rural transformation and poverty reduction.
• Sierra Leone Electrification Rate:
– National: 5%
– Urban: 11%
– Rural: < 1% • The productivity and health of most Sierra Leoneans, especially
the rural population, are reduced by dependence on traditional fuels and technologies, with women and children most at risk.
– Therefore access to modern, clean energy should be treated as a fundamental right to everybody.
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Project Overview
• Pre-Lantern Period in Kychom
– Lighting Source: Crude kerosene lamps, candles and torch lights (dry cell batteries).
– Eye irritation, coughing, nasal problems and fire hazards associated with the use of kerosene lamps.
– A number of children reportedly fall ill of accidental kerosene poisoning every year.
– The disposal of used dry cell batteries in open dumps or as litter is a common practice in Kychom.
– Few individual families and businesses own small portable generators but are only used when fuel is available.
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Project Overview • Pre-Lantern Period in Kychom
– Street vendors using hazardous kerosene lamps – Food poisoning
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Project Overview
• The GoSL, with its vision to work for national sustainable development, partnered with the GoI, in collaboration with TERI based in India and UNIDO, to tackle the challenge of low or no energy access in rural communities.
• The aim is to provide lighting in off-grid rural areas of Sierra Leone through solar PV lanterns.
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Solar Lantern Charging Stations • Six (6) solar lantern charging stations setup at different locations in Kychom.
Mobile Phone Charging
Training of Local Technicians • Training of local technicians in the setting up of charging stations and on the
O&M of the solar PV systems and lanterns.
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Project Impacts • Education
– Motivation of teachers and students of Kychom schools • Beneficial effects of increased attendance rates, improved academic performance and
the development of adult functional literacy activities.
– Success rate of students in the national public examinations has increased drastically and enrollment doubled in the last year.
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Night Classes
• Small & Medium Enterprises – The use of solar lights instead of kerosene-powered lamps reduces the
risk of food contamination, respiratory and eye defect problems.
– Extended business hours beyond 6:00 PM, the standard closing time for the pre-lantern period
• Transformed barely viable enterprises into more sustainable, income-generating ones.
• Increase in total sales and more profitable turn over.
10 Carpentry Workshop Retail Business
• Health – The only health clinic in Kychom relied on kerosene lanterns, torchlights
and, occasionally, generators for their lighting needs before this intervention.
– Purchasing of dry cell batteries and the supply of fuel to the clinic created logistical difficulties.
– Women in labour now have clean light to have safe child delivery at any time.
• Job creation – A full-time workforce of three operation and maintenance technicians and
one security agent have been hired at each charging station and paid directly by the Kychom Energy Committee.
– The committee comprises of seven (7) members who are also on payroll.
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• Religion – Night prayers at the Kychom central mosque.
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Sustainability
The project has a strong capacity building and training component for local technicians, while the income generated from lantern rentals and mobile phone charging is used to pay salaries and address system costs.
GoSL realizes the potential of the initiative and intends to mainstream it in its plans: ◦ GoSL is planning to use off-grid solar power services, and promote the
creation of markets for solar technologies through the private sector.
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Replicability and scaling up
• The success of solar lanterns as viable off-grid alternative is spreading across Africa, thanks to its easy-to-use, easily maintained, self-financing character.
• The initiative will be rolled out to all rural areas in Sierra Leone, so that remote areas likely to be off the national grid will have access to affordable and sustainable energy.
Accolades • South-South and Triangular Cooperation Visionary Award at the 2013 UN
Global South-South Development Expo organized by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation and hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya from 28 October to 1 November, 2013.
• Selected by UNDG as one of the best practice projects in 2016.
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Thank you for your attention • Contacts:
Rana Pratap SINGH
Industrial Development Officer
Rural and Renewable Energy Unit
Energy and Climate Change Branch
UNIDO, Vienna, Austria
Kelleh Gbawuru-Mansaray
National Project Coordinator
UNIDO Sierra Leone
Email: [email protected]
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