This week, an unexpected store opened in rural Haiti. Inside, the items for sale include solar panels, solar-powered lamps, and ultra-efficient stoves. In a country where nearly 70 percent of the people lived without reliable electricity before the earthquake struck, a little sustainable technology can go a long way. American social entrepreneur Dan Schnitzer is determined to make this tech a realistic alternative to kerosene, candles and darkness.
His path to Haiti started when he was a senior at the University of Chicago in 2007. Schnitzer and his friends got a $1,000 grant to build a wind turbine from scratch. They chronicled the project online and one day in early 2008, Schnitzer got an email from a Haitian man living in the United States who asked whether their turbine could power streetlights in his hometown, Les Anglais, a town on the southern peninsula that's 200 miles from Port-au-Prince.
The turbine was too small for the job, but Schnitzer learned that turbine size wasn't the problem. The town didn't have streetlights, and after doing some research, he found that installing them would cost millions. He wondered if the town even wanted streetlights, thinking they might have more pressing technological needs, so he set out to ask them.
Working with the local Haitian organization COREA, Schnitzer completed 260 surveys by the end of 2008. What he learned became the impetus for EarthSpark International, the nonprofit he co-founded that year.
Schnitzer discovered that, when given a long list of different kinds of energy to choose from, the locals most wanted solar-powered lighting, which they could carry around or use in their homes. The more time he spent in the country, the more he realized that he wasn't seeing a technology problem. He was seeing a business problem.
"If you're talking about daily life, supply chains already exist to deliver kerosene and candles, and inefficient stoves," he says. "You're only going to beat those if you have a competing supply chain."
EarthSpark International wants to establish a sustainable network of stores to sell clean tech, including solar panels and ultra-efficient stoves called "Réchaud Mirak" in Creole, which use a fraction of the charcoal that a traditional aluminum stove requires. A solar-powered desk lamp has a payback period of less than a year compared to what families in the area spend on kerosene and candles. In July 2009, ground broke on EarthSpark's first clean energy store, Magazen Enèji Pwòp, which is owned and managed by COREA. Then, in January, the nonprofit was called into urgent action.
Schnitzer had just returned to the United States from an extended stay in Haiti when the earthquake struck.
"It was devastating," he says. "Soon after the earthquake, someone brought to our attention the impact on women. There was a rise in violence against women, and rape in the camps in some of these communities."
Lighting and security in the washing areas women used was nearly nonexistent. Compounding matters, gangs had hoarded aid and were demanding high prices for it.
EarthSpark raised funds and used its knowledge of solar lighting technology to get solar flashlights to women. As a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, the nonprofit worked with Haitian research initiative INURED, Paul Farmer's Partners In Health, AIDG, KONPAY, and the Haitian government's ministry of women's affairs to get 3,000 SunNight Solar BoGo flashlights distributed.
"Women weren't just using them to light their tents, or as a flashlight. They were clipping them outside of the tents to provide public lighting. They created patrols at night," Schnitzer says. "They were using them as public goods."
Back in Les Anglais, EarthSpark has ambitious plans to move beyond home-scale solar. "If they want to become more and more productive," Schnitzer says, "they're going to have to have access to electricity that they can pay for on a unit basis rather than having to buy the panels themselves."
To get there, the first store will become the starting point for a community-sized microgrid powered by renewable energy: photovoltaics, battery storage and biodiesel-powered generators. EarthSpark plans to kick-start community-based electricity distribution in other parts of the country, including Port-au-Prince.
With plans like that, renewable energy in Haiti has a fighting chance.
Photo: The front of EarthSpark International's new Clean Energy Store -- Magazen Enèji Pwòp in Creole -- which had its grand opening this week in Les Anglais, Haiti. Credit: Allison Archambault, EarthSpark International.
Tags: Alternative Power Sources, DoGooding, Electricity, Green Tech, Solar Power
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