When Madame Agatte woke up in the middle of the night feeling sick last month, she also felt a sense of relief.

To make an herbal tea - which would have taken her nearly an hour with her charcoal stove - she didn't need to go outside and light a fire. Madame Agatte went to her newly electric kitchen, boiled water, and 10 minutes later was sipping a soothing drink.

Madame Agatte is one of the participants in EarthSpark's electrification of cooking pilot program in Les Anglais. Through this project 29 households are now using electric pressure cookers and induction stoves to cook meals for over 120 people. Each of the households have participated in hands-on trainings with the devices. After one month of electric cooking, participants are excited about the benefits and opportunities of electric cooking:

• Participants are reporting significantly faster cooking times, opening up more time for other activities like education, work, and also simply for leisure.
• Participants are saving money on charcoal and happy with the convenience of being able to cook indoors
• Participants are enjoying cooking without the harmful smoke that normally comes with cooking with charcoal and wood in traditional stoves
• Participants are surprised and pleased that they are able to cook their same traditional meals effectively with the new electric technology.

Click here to see the tea recipe and Madame Agatte's black bean sauce recipe!

EarthSpark and the study participants will track cooking trends and attitudes over the next few months. This will help create a strong evidence-base for expanding opportunities for clean electric cooking in other communities in Haiti and around the world. Keep an eye out for upcoming reports and mini-documentaries on our clean cooking work!

What was the last new technology that you adopted, and how has it changed your life? EarthSpark's president, Allison Archambault's recently posted TEDx talk about our work in Haiti and her own adventures in electric cooking remind us that from Marie Agathe's kitchen to our own, we're all part of the energy transition currently underway. Climate change and social justice are inextricably linked, and we can all push for progress in many ways, wherever we are.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board approved EarthSpark's project "Scaling Smart, Solar, Energy Access Microgrids in Haiti" at the B.25 GCF Board meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, on 10-12 March 2020. To implement the project, EarthSpark has partnered with the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) which holds 'Accredited Entity' status with the GCF. The project will scale-up EarthSpark's solar-powered smart microgrid model to bring electricity to dozens more towns in rural Haiti.

The board approval is the result of over 3 years of EarthSpark's work towards this funding. It's a piece of a bigger, still-in-formation blended finance package that will bring individual donations, institutional grant funding, social impact investment, Haitian government support, and concessionary debt from development finance institutions together to cost-effectively expand clean, reliable electricity service in Haiti.

"For over 10 years, EarthSpark has been 'proving what is possible' for clean energy in Haiti and building the foundations for successful microgrids. We're thrilled to have found such a strong partner in NEFCO to help our team now scale up to bring clean, reliable electricity to many more towns," said Allison Archambault, President of EarthSpark. "The GCF funding will be transformative."

In October, GCF's independent Technical Advisory Panel assessed the project to have high impact across all six investment criteria. The project will expand on EarthSpark's two existing and successfully operating solar-powered minigrids with an additional 22 fully solar-powered mini-grids in rural areas of Haiti. In addition to the hard costs of infrastructure, the project includes strong livelihood support and gender components, building on EarthSpark's already successfully applied "Feminist Electrification" methodology for which EarthSpark won the international UNFCCC Momentum for Change award in 2018.

NEFCO will administer the Green Climate Fund's $9.9 million composed of a grant of $1.4 million and a subordinated loan of $8.5 million. The GCF financing, in turn, is expected to be catalytic in securing an impact equity investment of $1.3 million, co-financing of $8 million from results-based grants and debt from senior lenders totaling $23.6 million. This combined with EarthSpark's contribution of its own grid and operational assets, valued at $3 million, will finance the total capital investment of $45.8 million.

Ash Sharma, who led the transaction at NEFCO, stated, "Working with GCF's Private Sector Facility and our partners at EarthSpark, we aim to bring clean, reliable and affordable energy to 84,000 Haitians in the south of the country, mostly customers at the base of the pyramid, by installing 5.8 megawatts [of solar] across 22 mini-grids. These will generate climate change mitigation benefits of 10,700 tonnes CO2 emissions per annum." (See the NEFCO press release here.)

[TIBURON, HAITI, Dec. 21]: EarthSpark International launched its second solar-powered microgrid in Haiti today. The system is the first community-power grid to be approved under Haiti’s new national regulatory body. Building on EarthSpark’s model of community-scale smart solar infrastructure, the grid will serve 500 homes and businesses with 24/7 electricity in Tiburon, a small fishing town in the southern peninsula. The launch marks a major step in mainstreaming microgrid power in Haiti.

“Microgrids hold enormous potential to quickly bring electricity to communities across rural Haiti. For 10 years now, EarthSpark and our Haitian affiliate Enèji Pwòp have been building a foundational track record of clean energy delivery in rural Haiti,” says Allison Archambault, President at EarthSpark International. “The launch of the Tiburon grid is a success story for multi-sector partnerships building a market that can scale-up to sustainably electrify the 70% of the Haitian population still living without electricity.”

To achieve the launch, EarthSpark worked closely not only with the community of Tiburon, but also with local and national elected officials, with the national regulatory authority, the national electricity company Électricité d’Haïti, the Haitian engineering firm DigitalKap, and with international stakeholders including the US Agency for International Development and the World Bank to inform practical and policy next steps.

"The government is committed to improving electricity access in rural regions by deploying smart microgrids in more than 51 sites. Today, with the collaboration of EarthSpark and Enèji Pwòp, we did it in Tiburon in the South Department. This is the first provisional license for a community microgrid ever signed by the regulatory authority for the energy sector," said Dr. Evenson Calixte, Director of the National Regulatory Authority (ANARSE).

In addition to being a point of progress for clarification in the legal and regulatory environment for energy in Haiti, the Tiburon grid also represents a point of resilience in the face of natural disasters. Tiburon was hit hard in 2016 by Hurricane Matthew. Though EarthSpark had already secured funding and local support for the grid, the storm brought down pre-existing poles and wires. USAID and the Haitian government provided support to rebuild the distribution system and to complete the full construction of the grid.

The Tiburon grid is a 95kW solar smart grid that offers a clean, 24-hour, and affordable electricity for homes and businesses which had never before had access to reliable grid electricity. The grid has a backup diesel genset – the last genset EarthSpark will install as it transitions to 100% solar power for future grids. Customers, energy vendors, and grid managers interact with the grid through the  SparkMeter utility interface which enables pre-payment billing, load management, and theft detection to ensure efficient operations. 

EarthSpark’s microgrids directly achieve the United Nation’s seventh Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), affordable and clean energy, while unlocking opportunities to progress all 17 goals including:

• SDG 1 No Poverty: Residential customers save up to 80% and commercial customers save up to 50% on pre-grid energy expenses (ie. candles, kerosene, and diesel).
• SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being: Electricity displaces fuels like candles, kerosene, and some charcoal which release harmful air pollutants which contribute to causing respiratory health diseases especially for women.
• SDG 11/13 Sustainable Cities and Communities/Climate Action: Clean and decentralized microgrids build economic and climate resilience in Haiti’s most climate vulnerable communities.
• SDG 16 Peace and Justice Strong Institutions: The first microgrid authorized by the Government of Haiti’s new regulator created to reform energy in Haiti, including the promotion of private microgrid development.

 
As of today, residents of Tiburon will join a small handful of communities in the Caribbean nation with reliable 24-hour electricity. The grid was funded primarily by the OPEC Fund for International Development with additional support from USAID, The Pan-American Development Foundation, the Organization of American States, and individual donors.

To see events from the launch, customer profiles and more, follow us on Facebook and Twitter at @EarthSparkIntl.

By Andy Bilich

An audible crunch and a real (ok, maybe imagined) hiss are not what you expect when plugging in your phone, but that’s exactly what greeted me a few weeks ago when I accidentally squished a beetle inside my electrical outlet.

Bugs are not exactly top of mind when you think of the business of solar microgrids, but over the past few months about 5% of customers have lost plugs due to the presence of ants and other insects. While the cost to replace an outlet is nominal, plug problems  nonetheless interrupt service for customers and take technician time away from other work.

Beyond bugs, lightning looms as another significant risk for microgrid operations, particularly customer meters. In the last few months 24 meters have been damaged by lightning strikes and surges. The meters range in price based on the level of electricity service they support, but even the most modest meters cost around $35 USD. Larger meters used for grid management cost upwards of $150 each.

To account for these operational risks, EarthSpark stocks backup inventory, but more importantly the team must integrate technology, systems, and processes that proactively manage these risks. This includes surge protection devices, efficient protocol for responding to lighting strikes on our electricity poles and customer outreach and training on plug maintenance and protection.

​Microcosm of a challenging business environment for microgrids
Of course, lightning and insects are a microcosm of a larger, more challenging business and operating environment for energy access in Haiti.  Haiti is ranked 182 out of 190 countries in the World Bank Doing Business Rankings which systematically measures how difficult it is to conduct business in a given country across a variety of metrics. For Haiti, this difficulty is particularly reflected in commercial banking, the regulatory environment, and the cost of procurement of materials and land. Navigating these challenging yet essential business processes are all further complicated by the remote locations of EarthSpark’s microgrids, with limited infrastructure and high costs associated with transportation. When we hire a delivery truck, for example, we need to be sure it can navigate crossing the Les Anglais riverbed, and we work to time things so that the river is not too high to cross when the shipment makes the journey.

The World Bank’s Scaling Renewable Energy Program (SREP) Investment Plan for Haiti  highlights that renewable energy projects, and microgrids in particular, face additional operational challenges including but not limited to:

• Lack of regulatory and policy framework in the energy sector – The current regulatory environment is not well-defined, which creates high risks and uncertainty for planning and operations.
• Insufficient policy support for renewables – Current policy disadvantages both grid and off-grid renewables against their fossil fuel alternatives. Renewable energy equipment is subject to import duties and VAT tax, which can amount to over 30% of the product value, while fossil fuels enjoy subsidies.
• Devaluation of currency and related cost-recovery – Devaluation and fluctuation of local currency creates an operational risk for cost-recovery due to the high costs of imports for microgrid components and local tariffs. The Haitian Gourde is now worth less than half of what it was worth when the Les Anglais grid expansion launched in 2015.
• Low-levels of awareness and energy literacy for rural households – Households presently have a distinct need for improved energy literacy and awareness, particularly as it relates to energy efficiency, productive uses of electricity, and available technology.  

Derisking by doing
Well aware of these challenges, EarthSpark is nevertheless moving microgrids forward in Haiti. We describe our approach as ‘de-risking by doing’.  While good planning and critical thinking are essential elements of building a sector, only by building actual grids in real towns and having real-world conversations with policy makers and funders will we uncover the full set of challenges and their remedies.  EarthSpark’s push for pioneering infrastructure is helping to determine how infrastructure is defined and regulated in Haiti and beyond:

• Ground truthing real business costs. Through our experiences in Les Anglais and Tiburon, EarthSpark is able to ground-truth the real business cost of microgrid development and operations in Haiti and document critical pathways for improving the business environment. By sharing our work and challenges directly with regulators in Haiti as well as international stakeholders like the World Bank, we can support initiatives and efforts in the sector. As an example of this the World Bank SREP Investment Plan cites EarthSpark’s model and work 13 times as evidence of good practices, opportunities, and challenges for rural electrification in Haiti.
• Clearly communicating vulnerabilities. As the microgrid and energy access sector continues to grow and importantly develop more formalized regulations and frameworks, we continue to inform that process by practically demonstrating bottom-up legal and business vulnerabilities and advising of what capacity building actions are needed to shore up those vulnerabilities.
• Ensuring clean energy is an opportunity for all. Beyond building grids, EarthSpark also works extensively to increase demand sustainably and facilitate a just energy transition through customer education and outreach, cradle to cradle considerations for design, and driving best practices and opportunities for gender mainstreaming through the Feminist Electrification Platform.
• Leveraging public private partnerships. EarthSpark works directly with local mayors and communities to facilitate public and private co-operation to build an ecosystem for enterprise in emerging markets. This creates ownership and buy-in which not only empowers local stakeholders to take part in their own energy governance, but also improves the long-term sustainability of the systems.

By continuing this work and leveraging our lessons learned to showcase the value and opportunity for microgrids to regulators and stakeholders, particularly for providing a measure of resiliency and stability for rural communities in Haiti, EarthSpark plays a critical role in improving the business environment and ultimately driving clean energy progress for communities across Haiti. 

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).
​
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.
​
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.
​
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.

​By Adam Eberwein & Madie Sturgess

How many times did you interact with electricity before you left the house this morning? There are countless thoughtless touch points from when we turn off the alarm to when we flick the last switch on our way out of the house. Consider for a moment how your routine would change if, due to unexpected soaring costs of electricity, you had to budget for and ration your energy use. Chances are it would change how often you used your phone or laptop, what kinds of food you’d prepare, and when you’d go to sleep.

When an under-electrified nation seeks to solve its energy crisis, determining what electricity should cost becomes more than a business plan or household accounting. The accessibility of electricity impacts culture, prosperity, and opportunity, and the costs – borne ultimately by customers, governments, or donors  -- depend on policy, technology, and delivery structure. The question, “what should electricity cost”, is critical to EarthSpark as we work with communities to build a model for decentralized, cleantech-enabled, energy infrastructure across Haiti.
​
EarthSpark’s growing field operations are generating some real-world data necessary to help answer that question. Some of the latest figures from microgrid operations in Haiti are beginning to reveal the social and economic impacts EarthSpark’s microgrid energy is having on household and business.

Phone Use
Like in the US, Haiti’s rural communities depend on phones in daily life even though in Haiti charging a phone can be an expensive prospect involving a hike to the nearest phone charging business. Consequently, diesel generators (personal and small businesses) offer the primary source for phone charging, becoming a necessary and costly expense to the average household’s already tight budget.

In Les Anglais, our grid-connected customers have reported savings of 90% compared to their pre-grid phone charging expenses. More reliable and affordable access to phones gives customers greater access to information and opens opportunity for a mobile money economy to flourish. A change in affordability like this opens access to and participation in local, regional, and global markets in addition to news and information.

Access to Freezers
Households and businesses with grid-connected freezers are spending 45% less on electricity to reliably power their appliance. This makes freezers powered by a personal generator, nearly two times more expensive than its clean-powered alternative. Being able to afford to reliably power a freezer improves food security, nutrition, and economic opportunity. Local agricultural producers can nominally reduce post-harvest losses, households can store a diversity of foods for longer, and greater opportunities for small businesses arise. With inaccessibly high electricity tariffs these opportunities disappear, and with well-intentioned cheap tariffs these opportunities arise for a time but inevitably disappear as the operational model of the grid is unable to sustain operations and maintenance costs. In our team’s experience in Haiti, microgrid users’ adoption of freezers or fridges is an important step towards their adopting other income-generating equipment. The freezer holds the necessary combination of both a well-established and understood tool and a source of aspiration for many small businesses, with the ability to unlock new sources of income that were never before sustainable in this context. Our team has seen successful freezer utilization lead to adoption of tools requiring greater investment and savvy.

Lighting
In off-grid communities, kerosene lamps and candles are frequently used for lighting, releasing hazardous air pollutants, while delivering only poor lighting quality. When EarthSpark customers connect to the grid, they put away their candles and kerosene lamps and instead flip the switch on for LED lighting that is cleaner, more affordable, and shines as much as 250 times brighter than pre-grid lighting (on a lumens per watt basis). Households with quality lighting are often associated with better conditions for education and home-based work and displace air pollutants responsible for 8000 premature deaths a year across Haiti.
​
Household Economics: Comparing pre-grid energy, microgrid energy, US grid energy expenses

Drum roll please. The Tiburon grid is…ready to go, but still not on! 

We’re thrilled to share that the EarthSpark’s long-anticipated second grid in the town of Tiburon is ready for the switch to be thrown. Technical testing saw streetlights blazing across the town and customers are now signing up and getting their homes and businesses wired up for power. 

The catch? In an evolving legal and regulatory environment, we’re dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s and defining what constitutes operational approval from local and the relatively new national authorities. It’s hard to say whether the people of Tiburon or the EarthSpark team is more anxious to see the grid turned on, but we want to do it well and in collaboration with all of the relevant authorities. June 24 is a big holiday in Tiburon, so we’re hoping that we’ll all be able to find clarity before then to be able to power up the party (and the town!)

While the evolving regulatory challenges are a frustrating delay, they are a part of a broader shift for Haitian microgrids, and that is excellent news. When EarthSpark launched our first microgrid in 2012, our work was considered extremely fringe and essentially irrelevant to the national energy policy framework. When we expanded that grid in 2015 to be a ‘town-sized solar-powered smart grid’, policymakers took notice. Our 2015 National Microgrid Market Study furthered the discussion and became a benchmark document referenced by national and international authorities on rural electrification for Haiti.

Our steady work of “Proving what is possible” and “De-risking by doing” has not been fast, but it has been constant. We are now (finally!) seeing the shift that recognizes clean energy community microgrids as essential elements of solving energy access in Haiti. There are growing pains associated with that shift: new regulators, new rules, but we are working with the stakeholders to try to make sure that the outcomes enable EarthSpark’s broader goal of mainstreaming microgrids and specifically “moving microgrids towards market” in Haiti.  For broad deployment of microgrids, smart regulation and clear policies are essential.

We’ll let you know as soon as we are able to flip that switch on in Tiburon, and we’ll keep you posted, as always, as we work to continue pushing and proving what is possible for community-centered rural electrification in Haiti.

Warm summer regards,
Allison and the rest of the EarthSpark team

Love is finding the energy to help others.

On this Valentines Day, many across Haiti are blocked in their homes and isolated in small towns as protestors continue "Operation Lock" which is effectively blocking transit and commerce throughout the country. There is growing tension as fuel, food, and clean water supplies run low.

Protestors have reason to feel exasperated. Inflation has surged, making basic staples - many of which are imported - unaffordable for much of the population. Fuel shortages, and a growing outrage around development funds missing from the government coffers are driving louder and louder calls for the president's resignation.

Love takes many forms. Sometimes it demands protest. Sometimes it requires patience.

Though some are facing challenging circumstances in Port-au-Prince, most of the EarthSpark and Enèji Pwòp team members are safe (though stuck) in Les Anglais where the solar-powered microgrid is steadily providing energy to the town, undeterred by the national crisis.

We're happy today to share a new team photo of our growing team as well as a reflection from an independent consultant who recently came to assess our work. In the face of challenges and uncertainty, Love persists. If Love is finding the energy to help others, we will continue building it.

Happy Valentines Day from the EarthSpark team.

By Ash Sharma. Published Feb 1, 2019 on LinkedIn here.

The much vaunted phrase “win-win” doesn’t begin to capture the Haitian rural electrification project I have recently been evaluating. The Earth Spark mini-grid project implemented through local affiliate Enèji Pwòp (Clean Energy in the Haitian Creole language) combines energy access with energy transition, promotes the concept of Feminist Electrification http://www.earthsparkinternational.org/blog/feminist-electrification, builds rural livelihoods and addresses energy poverty reduction. You can add to the mix a dash of avoided deforestation, reduction of indoor air pollution and an increase food security through the electrification of on-site post-harvest processing.

The natural beauty of Haiti and the warmth of its people masks an underlying lack of economic opportunity, a worsening environment (evidenced by lack of waste and sanitation provision in the southern peninsula), poorly developed transport infrastructure, climatic vulnerability and the ever present risk of weather related disaster.

It is against this backdrop, that Enèji Pwòp has implemented an UNFCCC award winning solar minigrid system. I visited two towns where solar arrays had been deployed, met local consumers, institutions and microbusinesses, and witnessed at first hand the development of local enterprise and realisation of potential. Through retailing small, clean energy products and developing micro-grids, the social enterprise has mainstreamed gender considerations into its business practice. In Les Anglais, it has prioritized reaching out to women for training as clean energy and micro-grid entrepreneurs, as customers, and employees, with women as promoters of the grid (“ambassadors”) who play a key role in reaching out to other women and energy vendors.  

Haiti’s critically low level of access to electricity (around 10% of rural areas) seriously hampers growth and poverty reduction endeavours. By aiming to build an additional 20 mini-grids in off-grid communities in 3 years, Enèji Pwòp expects to directly serve approximately 35,000 additional people through approximately 6000 new grid connections.  The project is learning by doing in a difficult environment successfully experimenting with smart meters, cloud based customer management and billing systems, and innovative cost reduction strategies. Truly impressive work from a talented and committed team.

Keep up the great work!

(This post is included here with permission from the author. Additional comments and Mr. Sharma's other posts are on LinkedIn here.)