The first week of January of this year, NOVA Hope for Haiti’s new clinic and volunteer residence was fitted with a new solar energy system to provide our electricity needs and alleviate our need for running generators to provide our facility with power.
Electricity in Haiti is not reliable and in Cavaillon, while there is state power in theory, the electricity is very expensive and the power is off more than it is on. Up until this month, NOVA was relying on our generator to provide us with electricity.
Now NOVA’s facility is completely powered by the sun. At our New York City Fundraiser a friend of NOVA offered $15,000 toward solar panels which kicked off the project. The Board of Directors decided if we were going to invest in solar energy we wanted investigate a system that would make us independent of needing the generator on a regular basis. After receiving competitive quotes from companies in Haiti, we settled on a company that quoted a system that would make us energy independent. The system includes 30 solar panels installed on our roof, an inverter, and 8 large gel batteries to store energy during the day and provide it to the facility at night. The system was installed right after the new year, and a team of NOVA volunteers flew to Haiti after it was complete to meet with our contractor and inspect the new system.
The entire system wound up costing NOVA $30,000.00.
Everything is working well and the board is delighted that we have power 24 / day that is clean, renewable and green.
