What We Do
Solar Liberty Foundation provides resources such as solar electrification, solar water filtration, and solar cookers to assist people in need in less developed countries. As our mission evolves, we continually assess ways in which our expertise in solar energy systems can benefit people around the world.
With access to electricity, rural areas of less developed nations can improve education for their children, healthcare for the entire community, steady employment and other personal advancements.
Solar Electrification
In most rural areas of less developed countries, there is no public electrical grid, and if one does exist, service is intermittent at best with constant outages. Critical services such as hospitals and schools often rely on generators run by diesel fuel, an expensive and unreliable method for creating electricity. Reliable electricity in hospitals, in many situations can mean the difference between life and death.
We provide cost-effective, renewable energy sources through solar electrification with battery back-up systems. These systems use solar photovoltaic panels to convert the sun's energy into electrical power and can make a difference in so many ways:
- Health clinics can refrigerate medications and utilize laboratory equipment and communication systems.
- Schools can provide electricity for lights in classrooms and other teaching aids.
- Orphanages can cook for the children and provide better care for children with nighttime light.
- For families, a solar home system, can vastly improve their quality of life with basic essentials such as light for children to study by, refrigeration for daily food needs, and more.
Solar Water Filtration
Piped water supply systems are rare in rural areas of less developed nations and access to safe drinking water is limited. Often, people obtain water from dirty, bacteria infested springs, ponds and lakes. Water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, dysentery and diarrhea are common and one of the leading causes of death in young children.
Solar Liberty Foundation works on projects to provide villages with clean water through solar water filtration. Filtration systems make use of solar energy to purify fresh water from streams, ponds and lakes. Systems are capable of purifying many gallons per hour to meet the needs of small villages and provide a permanent supply of safe drinking water.
Solar Cookers
For families in less developed nations, cooking food can be a daily struggle. Many cook stoves are fueled by burning kindling and wood, which requires constant gathering, and can collectively result in deforestation and soil erosion in rural areas. In some areas in Africa, women spend 2-3 days per week collecting kindling. Women’s kindling collection is often dangerous as the distance increases to search for fuel. The Women’s Commission Director stated that women and girls have to venture out searching for fuel even though they know that they will be attacked or raped. The women and girls go out rather than men because if men go out they may be killed.
Other stoves are fueled by kerosene, charcoal, or other expensive fossil fuels, with frequent shortages. Both types of cook stoves create significant indoor air pollution which lead to pneumonia/acute respiratory infections. The relationship between indoor air pollution and acute lower respiratory infections account for 2.44 million deaths per year of children under five years old. Children are often burned and injured by cook stoves. These injuries are of concern both because of there frequency and because of the limited treatment options available in many countries.
We distribute solar cookers to use the power of the sun to cook food and to sterilize water. Advantages include:
- Solar cookers allow people to cook without the need for kindling or fuels.
- As such, they cost nothing to operate.
- And they eliminate the indoor concentration of health-damaging pollutants.
- Training is offered to educate and instruct people on how to cook in the solar cookers and to help overcome cultural acceptance issues.
