Case: Health Care Facilities in Mozambique

Project title: Solar Electricity for Rural Health Facilities

Customer: Ministry of Health, Mozambique

Funding: International Aid Agreement

Naps contact person: Jim Fanning

Completion date: February, 2002

Objectives:

1. To increase the coverage of health services in rural areas where there is no grid
2. To improve the quality of health services
3. To motivate the health care staff work in rural areas
4. To provide power vaccine refrigeration, illumination of clinics, and electrification of staff houses

Site specific issues:
Started in 1995 Mozambique has been implementing a National Health Recovery Programme of which this project covers all 10 provinces of the country in areas where there is no mains electricity grid. The sites are visited regularly to monitor solar system performance and to check that the few simple maintenance tasks are being carried out properly.

Implementation:
Totally 60 health care centres were powered with Naps solar electricity systems. Installation took place in three phases of 20 Health Centres each between 1998 and 2002. An average installation time per site was approximately 3 days. To ensure the consistency and quality in implementation, installation courses were held locally in Maputo and Chimoio. Each health centre has four independent solar electricity systems; one for the health centre lighting system, one vaccine refrigeration system, and two staff house systems. The staff house systems provide power for lighting and a domestic refrigerator of 60-litres. A modular system construction allows expansion at later stage.

Products:
A basic system consists of:

• Four or five 50-Watt solar modules
• Two batteries, total capacity 200 Ah, placed in a box
• a 30-Amp charge controller mounted in the box together with batteries
• a meter unit for monitoring the system
• Cabling with pre-attached connectors

The health centre lighting system includes a set of lights:

• Six 18W fluorescent lamps for mounting on ceilings or walls
• Two 20W halogen bulb medical examination lamps mounted on trolley feet , one for the delivery room and the other for the examination room
• One 10W halogen light with motion detector for storage room
• One 18W sodium-lamp for mounting on the outside of the clinic, equipped with a light sensor that turns it on automatically at night

The staff house system includes accessories as follows:

• Four 18W fluorescent lamps for general lighting
• One 20W halogen reading lamp
• One 60-litre domestic refrigerator

Conclusions:
The health care centre staff expressed great satisfaction with the lighting system, and the value of the medical examination lamps were particularly emphasized. The families living in the staff houses like to have light that is free of smoke and smell which usually is the case with kerosene lamps. In the beginning the charge state of the batteries was often rather low, caused by overuse of the lights. This was solved by further training of the health centre staff on maximum daily usage of lights according to the solar system design and further instruction on how to maintain the batteries’ correct electrolyte level with the distilled water provided. The batteries of the vaccine refrigerators have been without exception fully charged at all times. One important installation procedure that needed careful attention was shading of the solar modules by trees, even partial, which should always be avoided and which is now further emphasised in the training of local technicians.