Empowering Healthcare with Clean Energy in Kenya

Background

Established in 2006 by the Daughters of Divine Love Sisters, the Annunciation Mission Dispensary in Mwihoko, Kenya serves as a vital healthcare lifeline for its community. There, Sr. Pauline and her fellow Sisters serve a community of 11,000 mainly poor and vulnerable through 24-hour emergency care, maternity services, and community outreach. As a faith-based health facility, its mission is to provide consistent, quality care to those who cannot afford private local alternatives.

Challenge

For years, the dispensary’s operations were crippled by an expensive and unreliable power grid. The facility faced average daily outages of six hours, with no backup system in place. These disruptions created a high-stakes environment:

• Patient Safety Compromised: Power failures in the maternity ward put newborns in incubators and mothers in labor at extreme risk.
• Operational Inefficiency: Staff were forced to use candles or flashlights during nighttime deliveries. Laboratory tests, patient registration, and medication dispensing were frequently halted.
• Financial Loss: Frequent voltage fluctuations damaged sensitive medical equipment, leading to high maintenance costs. Additionally, the high cost of grid electricity drained resources that could have been used for patient care.
• Medical Waste: Unreliable refrigeration threatened the integrity of essential vaccines and laboratory reagents.

Solution

To address these systemic issues, a donor-funded grant from SRW was provided to Sr. Pauline to transition the dispensary to renewable energy. The grant facilitated the purchase and installation of a comprehensive 12kWH Hybrid Solar System.

The technical solution included:

• Solar Infrastructure: 14 solar panels (580W each) and a 12KW Multifunction Hybrid Inverter.
• Energy Storage: A 15KWH Lithium-Ion battery storage system to ensure 24/7 power availability, even during national grid failures.
• System Integration: An automatic changeover switch and specialized cabling to ensure a seamless transition between energy sources and protection against power surges

Results

Sr. Pauline reports that the transition to solar energy has transformed the Annunciation Mission Dispensary into a model of sustainable, reliable healthcare. Key outcomes include:

• Clinical Excellence: The facility now operates with zero blackouts. In just the first two months following installation, the dispensary recorded 11 safe maternity deliveries facilitated by adequate lighting. In addition, there has been a significant increase in Child Welfare Clinic attendance (1,293 visits) due to reliable vaccine refrigeration.
• Financial Sustainability: The dispensary has achieved a 100% reduction in power spending, not spending a single dollar on electricity since installation. An initial saving of $600 has already been reinvested into medicines and outreach services.
• Community Confidence: Staff no longer work in fear of outages. The 24/7 power supply has boosted community trust, as patients now know they will not be turned away or forced to wait hours for laboratory results.
• Environmental Impact: In just the first 46 days of utilization, the system prevented the release of 479kgs of CO2 into the atmosphere—an environmental impact equivalent to planting 33 trees.

Sr. Pauline shared the following testimonial from a dispensary technician along with her thanks to SRW and our donors:

"Since installing solar power, I've witnessed a remarkable transformation. We worked in constant fear, knowing the electricity could fail at any moment, especially during critical service delivery. It was disheartening for patients to wait hours for power to return in order for us to serve them. Now, we celebrate a new era of comfort where we provide services without anxiety. The community's confidence has surged. They prefer our dispensary, knowing that we guarantee service even during nationwide blackouts, thanks to our 24/7 power supply."

 - Dispensary Laboratory Technician

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