Women in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in Sierra Leone are receiving solar freezers to help them reduce their post-harvest losses. The UNDP transferred the freezers to the Government of Sierra leone through the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

Each system has a roof-mounted 16.62kWp of solar PV with 545Wp Solar PV panels and a 19.2kWh battery bank with 4.8kWh of Pylontech li-ion battery storage in total. Beyond the immediate impact on healthcare delivery, this initiative by Aptech Africa represents a crucial step towards sustainable development in Sierra Leone.

With constant power cuts and a massive $40 million government debt owed to the Turkish power generating and supply company – Karpowership, the people of Sierra Leone, especially residents of the capital Freetown have lost all hopes of the restoration of electricity supplies.

Sierra Leone’s energy poverty, like other countries in the African continent, has compounded massively. Most of the country still depends on firewood for cooking fuel and the country’s progress towards renewable shift is extremely slow. Over 72 per cent of the country has no access to electricity and 99.2 per cent depend on unclean cooking fuel.

The hybrid system efficiently combines energy from solar, the national grid, and a diesel generator. One of the key features of this installation is the remote monitoring system, which provides real-time information on energy generation, inverter performance, weather conditions, and energy usage.

Major initiatives under the programme include a newly announced project to help young women build careers in renewable energy; financing mini-grid development through the Universal Energy Facility; advising on how to improve the affordability of mini-grid electrification; managing the solar electrification of hospitals; and more.