Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) Engineering Service Corps partnered with United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the IKEA Foundation to bring clean electricity to the Dollo Ado refugee camps in Ethiopia. 3kW solar-battery micro-grids are transforming lives in the camps.
UNHCR operates five refugee camps in the Dollo Ado desert region of Ethiopia. They are home to approximately 220,000 Somali refugees who fled their home country to escape famine, drought, civil war and violence.
The camps are difficult environments to live and work in by any measure. Temperatures can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. Rain falls only a few days per year. Blowing dust gets into everything, damaging equipment and contaminating water and food. And as the sun goes down another obstacle emerges: the absence of reliable energy sources.
The Night’s Dangers
The Ethiopian electrical grid stops hundreds of miles away from these camps, meaning that any electricity here must be generated locally. At night, only wood fires and the occasional battery-powered flashlight light the camps. It’s the kind of pitch-black we rarely experience in the U.S.
Lack of electricity may not sound like a big deal when compared to other threats facing refugees. But without reliable power, even the smallest activities become challenging. Simple tasks like doing homework, storing food safely, communicating with loved ones or neighbors, getting news from the outside world, or even visiting a latrine can be both difficult and dangerous.
Shop owners only run their refrigerators a few hours a day, relying on the embedded energy to “carry over.” Cell phones are charged during the day at local kiosks, but if your phone battery dies at night or you don’t have the money to pay to charge, your means of communication is cut off.
Seeking medical services or giving birth at night is incredibly risky. If the medical clinic runs out of fuel for its generator, there is no alternative but to wait until the morning.
All of this is starting to change.
Installing Solar Micro-Grids
the Engineering Service Corps helped install solar micro-grids at the camps. These systems power medical clinics, support businesses and provide energy for other essential community needs.
The first phase of grid installation targeted local clinics, which primarily serve mothers and children. The impacts were immediate. Clinic staff reported that guaranteed light allows them to more reliably deliver nighttime births. They also no longer have to turn away patients because the generator isn’t working.
“This is an exciting day of independence,” said a health care worker at the Bokolmanyo Clinic.
Dr. Yared Henock agreed, adding, “We are very happy to have the solar to keep the lights on and our sterilizer working here.”
Solar power proved to be an affordable, quiet, reliable and eco-friendly alternative to diesel. But that’s only part of the story. The micro-grid created new jobs — a meaningful and lasting byproduct of this clean power project.
Sustainable Projects, Sustainable Jobs
As part of this work, the Engineering Service Corps also trained local electricians in solar technology. These solar technicians perform the majority of the micro-grid installation work.
They also formed technical cooperatives comprised of residents of the camps and host communities. These cooperatives will maintain and operate the micro-grids. The structure ensures that the grids will provide the camps with reliable power for years.
Abdullahi Mohomed Adow is the energy ambassador and head of the solar technicians at the Bokolmanyo Camp. He has been living in the camp for eight years and is excited about the micro-grid project and its possibilities.
“Solar is a new, safer technology,” Adow said. “From a professional side we learn new skills, and we can receive good wages with solar. From a business level, we see it is safer than the generators all the business use.”
The government of Ethiopia does not currently allow most refugees to work or travel outside the camps, so there are few formal jobs available. Work provides dignity and purpose for the camp’s residents —most of whom have spent between 7 and 9 years in these camps and have little certainty of returning home to Somalia.
Elizabeth Joyce of EWB-USA’s Engineering Service Corps helped complete the project.
“Many of the predominantly male technicians I worked with spoke of the boredom of staying at home with no work and nowhere to go, of the desire to provide for their families and their feelings of distress in not being able to do so, and of the need to supplement their UNHCR food distribution with income to provide better nutrition for their children,” Joyce said. “Having work—and, even better, having transferable skills and an opportunity for entrepreneurship—is one small step toward addressing job creation.”
After the installation, EWB-USA focused on supporting a smooth transition as the cooperatives took over full management and operation of the micro-grids. With clean power, hospitals can better function, children can do their homework at night, residents can move about the camp safely and an evening trip to the bathroom is no longer a perilous journey into the dark desert night.