Celebrating 20 Years in Africa
This marks the 20th year of traveling to Liberia for our ongoing ministry program to bring sustainable, critical power to remote areas. The past two decades have resulted in 271 kilowatts (kW) installed, 1,795,000 kW hours of power produced, and thousands of tons of avoided CO2 release.
We are proud to be supporting 87 active clinics, orphanages, and schools to date. A conservative estimated value of the energy produced is $1,346,500 USD, but the lives that have been saved because there were vaccines, light, and power at the clinics when people came to deliver their children or seek medical attention – priceless.
During our latest visit this February we were able to make systems operational at both Phebe Hospital in Bong County and Curran Hospital School of Nursing in the town of Zorzor. Follow along Chip’s daily accounts of the first week at Phebe Hospital with the Liberia team:
Day 1
Today we installed 7 charge controllers and 6 - 15 kW inverters on their new 90 kW system. In the picture the DC wiring comes into the building into the underground trench shown. Great start, I’m proud to be working with a great team!
Day 2
The DC Charge Controller board is coming along nicely and the layout for the inverters is taking shape. Very exciting!
Day 3
2000A DC bus going up. 7 solar arrays completed, DC wiring to the charge controllers complete. Clicking right along, thanks to our great team!
Day 4
We have the DC board nearly complete to the DC bus (without the wire training), inverter wall with wiring progressing and AC distribution wall coming together. Tomorrow we will probably get everything terminated and potentially begin testing. Stay tuned!
Day 5
Interestingly, lugs, or what they call ‘cable shoes’ are pretty hard to find in Gbarnga. We had one of our engineering students travel to Monrovia (3 hours away) to pick some up, as well as other components that came up missing. All in all, for a system designed in February 2025 and ordered in March, shipped in June and received in August, not so bad. Here’s the floor chase cover and DC wiring going in. Wire cleanup to follow.
Producing Power
In a week the Liberian team has completed the 90 kW solar installation. The system is now online and providing power to the hospital’s critical bus!
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Willie Voupawoe and the team in Liberia, supporters in the US including Peirce Family Foundation, Brother's Brother Foundation, Global Health Ministries, and ARP Solar, and many others. It takes a village. Thank you!
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