No Shortage of Opportunities – How a Solar Microgrid is Providing Resiliency in Uncertainty

By Andy Bilich

Long queues for fuel are now a common occurrence in Port-au-Prince.

It was mid-day when Wendy got the call from the neighboring town. “Do you have any diesel?” the caller asked. It’s a common question in Haiti right now. Fuel shortages have been creeping along for weeks. Most major gas stations in Port-au-Prince are intermittently closed and rationing and very little fuel is getting beyond the capital.
 
Since the majority of electricity in the country comes from burning imported fossil fuels, fuel crises – more frequent now – directly lead to grid electricity shutting off for hours, days, or weeks – even more than usual. Les Anglais, where 100% of the electricity supply is coming from solar energy these days, is an exception. “We might be the only grid in the country providing 24/7 power” speculated Wendy Sanassee, Director of Haiti Operations for EarthSpark.
 
A shining example of 24/7 clean, reliable power in Haiti
In a shining example of the value and effectiveness of solar microgrids in delivering reliable electricity to communities in rural Haiti, the Les Anglais system leverages a solar+battery system (100 kw of solar + 208 kWh of storage) coupled with smart meters and a focused effort on community energy literacy and the development of local enterprises – known as “Productive Use of Energy” –   to provide reliable, affordable, and clean power to a significant and growing number of households and businesses (over 450 existing customers with over 100 new customers signed up for an upcoming grid expansion).
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While the Les Anglais system has a diesel generator backup, it is now rarely used for day-to-day operations. In fact, during the month of August and the first week and a half of September, the generator in Les Anglais ran a total of about 2 hours – mostly for scheduled maintenance and a momentary system fault during recent lightning storms. Indeed, EarthSpark is planning to phase out diesel completely in favor of 100% renewable energy for its future grids.
 
Climate change and the impending need for expanded resiliency
With high reliance on imports, limited budgets, constrained transportation and logistics, as well as other acute stressors like political instability and natural disasters, supply disruptions and system shocks like the current diesel shortage are unfortunately common in developing economies – especially in island nations with complex business environments[1] like Haiti.
To compound issues, these disruptions and their underlying socioeconomic, political, and environmental contexts are likely to be exacerbated by the expanding climate crisis.
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Haiti is ranked as the most vulnerable country in the Americas to climate change (and is frequently among the most vulnerable in the world.) Of the expected climate change impacts[2] [3] [4] [5], the higher frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and their consequential flooding, is particularly concerning for Haiti as more than 93% of the country and more than 96% of the population are exposed to these natural disasters with the poorest Haitians, including low-income women, children, and elderly people, particularly vulnerable.
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To proactively respond to existing disruptions and the future threats presented by climate change, communities in Haiti and beyond need energy solutions that are both reliable and resilience-boosting.
 
Solar microgrids enable long-term community resiliency
Establishing a foundation of clean, reliable, and affordable electricity through solar microgrids not only directly addresses the issue of energy poverty by providing energy access to off-grid communities, but it can also fundamentally change how these communities are able to effectively plan for and cope with shocks – like a diesel shortage, hurricane, or climate change – by enabling new technology, approaches, and indeed resources for long-term adaptation and resiliency.  
By boosting businesses and livelihood opportunities and also simply reducing energy expenditures from the baseline (~80% savings for households and 50% savings for businesses compared to the status quo fuels), microgrids provide for both income availability and income stability for households which improves their ability to adapt and respond to crisis.

By enabling use of agricultural processing equipment (mills, threshers, grinders, dryers, etc.), storage and handling technology (refrigeration, crop drying, packaging, etc.) as well as cold chain for transportation, solar microgrids can help to improve food security (particularly for rural communities that are more logistically isolated from central food supply networks) by reducing post-harvest food loss, improving food quality, increasing access to nutritious foods, and controlling timing of sales.[6] [7] Microgrids can also support the deployment of other new technologies (i.e. water pumping, refrigeration, medical equipment etc.), which can potentially unlock greater opportunity for and stability of other basic services most notably health, communications, and water availability. [8]

Microgrids can also enable a higher level of connectivity to outside financial and informational resources and systems, particularly by encouraging the adoption of mobile money applications and enhancing the stability of communication services.[9]
Microgrids can further provide a measure of resilience for communities by islanding electric service and critical operations like health clinics, food distribution, etc. and reducing recovery time following disruptions. This is in addition to the intrinsic resilience that microgrids provide due to the nature of their distributed, modular construction that does not rely on long, vulnerable power distribution systems to deliver electricity. [10] [11]

Expanding microgrid opportunities for Haitian communities
Especially amidst the backdrop of ongoing and future uncertainty, the Les Anglais (and Tiburon[12]) microgrids provide a critical blueprint for energy resiliency and highlight that there is no shortage of opportunity for solar microgrids to provide clean, reliable energy access to communities across Haiti. In fact, with its 2015 national microgrid market study, EarthSpark and its Haitian partner Enèji Pwòp made the case that over 80 towns across Haiti would be strong candidates for solar microgrids. As EarthSpark works towards turning on grid #2, it is also working toward the scale-up plan for the next 22 towns. With the right kind of financing and a streamlined regulatory environment to better support microgrid deployment, and operations, many more towns across Haiti could soon see their critical services delivered in spite of national fuel shortages, future natural disasters, or whatever else awaits. With more secure access to energy and related resilience, those living in rural Haiti can unlock the true potential of their communities.
 
 
 

Footnotes
[1] Haiti is ranked 182 out of 190 countries in the World Bank Doing Business Rankings which systematically measure how difficult it is to conduct business in a given country across a variety of metrics.
[2] Oxfam, Climate Change Resilience: The Case of Haiti (2014), Available at: https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/rr-climate-change-resilience-haiti-260314-en_2.pdf
[3] UNDP, Estimation des couts des impacts du changement climatique en Haiti (2015; Available at: https://www.undp.org/content/dam/haiti/docs/Protection%20de%20l%20environnement/UNDP-HT-ProEnv-EtuEconoCC.pdf
[4] USAID, Climate Risk Profile – Haiti (2017; Available at: https://www.climatelinks.org/sites/default/files/asset/document/2017_Cadmus_Climate-Risk-Profile_Haiti.pdf
[5] Haiti Second National Communication on Climate Change (2002), Available at: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/htinc2.pdf
[6] World Food Programme, “Energy for Food Security” (2019); Available at: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/WFP-0000106572.pdf
[7] SEAR, Energy Access for Food and Agriculture; Available at: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/417941494928698197/pdf/115062-BRI-P148200-PUBLIC-FINALSEARSFFoodandAgrigcultureweb.pdf
[8] World Food Programme, “Energy for Food Security” (2019); Available at: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/WFP-0000106572.pdf
[9] IRENA, Off-grid renewable energy solutions to expand electricity access: An opportunity not to be missed (2019); Available at: https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Jan/IRENA_Off-grid_RE_Access_2019.pdf
[10] Siemens, “Resilient by Design: Enhanced Reliability and Resiliency for Puerto Rico’s Electric Grid” (2018), Available at: https://microgridknowledge.com/white-paper/mini-grids/
[11] NREL, Distributed Generation to Support Development-Focused Climate Action (2016); Available at: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/66597.pdf
[12] It is important to highlight that this one town example could easily be two towns as Enèji Pwòp has another microgrid ready to be turned on in the nearby town of Tiburon – but it is awaiting regulatory sign off.

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