Power of a Solar Tree

It was chilly when we arrived at Mulanje Boma, a small town at the foot of tallest mountain in Malawi. That rainy Friday, Mount Mulanje was draped in fog and the locals recalled not experiencing sunshine for a week.

But the wet weather did not dim health services at Mulanje Mission Hospital (MMH), where a solar tree recently installed by Sky Energy proclaims a silent shift towards the power of the sun to save lives.

“Come rain or sunshine, there's enough sunlight to keep the hospital running. In fact, we are fully powered by solar right now. We no longer rely on the grid,” bragged Wilson Kachikuwa, the hospital’s electrical technician.

The man, wearing a blue work suit, was standing in the shade of the solar tree at the heart of the health facility owned by the CCAP Blantyre Synod. The tree, ’leaved' with 40 solar panels, adds 30 kilowatts to a hybrid power system once powered by the rooftop solar panels alone. The power being generated is stored by 46 solar batteries, partly recharged by the grid. Sixteen of these batteries have an inbuilt battery management system that detect and display the amount of power stored.

Ending blackouts

With the upgrade, the hospital management envisage harnessing solar power to pump groundwater and run laundry machines.

"We don't experience blackouts any more. We use solar power day and night. When Escom cuts power, health workers continue doing their life-saving work without any disruption, so the patients have no reason to complain."

This is third phase of MMH’s switch to renewable energy. For hospital director Ruth Shakespeare, tapping the power of the sun represents a life-saving game changer at the hospital where women used to give birth under candlelight or yellowish glows of kerosene lamps.

Long-serving health workers remember operating on women with birth complications in theatres using candles. Some newborns and mothers were dying in the dark, they say.

Not any longer.  Memories of protracted blackouts and huge electricity bills are slowly fading amid multiple benefits of solar power.

Kachikuwa, who has been at the hospital since 2001, explained: “We don't experience blackouts any more. We use solar power day and night. When Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi [Escom] cuts power, health workers continue doing their life-saving work without any disruption, so the patients have no reason to complain.

“Previously, when power goes off, we used to rush for candles and kerosene lamps which were exposing both patients and hospital workers to smoke and fumes which cause respiratory diseases.”

The power of the sun has also pushed diesel-powered generators out of the circuit. Near the control room, we saw spiders’ web in the exhaust pipe of a generator planted on the wayside.

“We haven't run the genset for months because the solar system has proved reliable,” he stated.

This way, the hospital has eliminated noise as well as carbon emissions that fuel air pollution and climate change.

The shift to renewable energy comes at a time government is switching to fossil fuels, especially coal and diesel-powered generators, to boost the grid slowed by falling hydropower generated by turbines on Shire and Wovwe rivers.

Both coal and oil are major polluters discouraged by the Paris Agreement to save the planet from climate change.

MMH proves the renewables have the power to close energy gaps in health facilities excluded from the grid and those burdened by frequent blackouts.

Save for theatre and X-ray machines which require high power load, the whole hospital uses solar power.

“Soon we will replace the heavy-duty machines which need the grid, with digital technology powered by solar,” Kachikuwa indicated.

Mulanje Mission Hospital is also home to a State-funded five-kilowatt solar power system to improve family planning and prevention of mother-to-child. This is part of K2.7 billion project, funded by the Global Fund, in which the Ministry of Health has installed solar systems to ease power shortages n 85 health across the country.

However, such is the determination gaining sway at the second-largest hospital in Mulanje that the technician says it looks certain to go off-grid in the near future.

The solar tree is part of the shift which got off to an assuring start with installation of a life-saving unit powering oxygen concentrators, labour and children wards, children wing, kangaroo care section and corridor lights.

The mini-system was later expanded to the female and male wards, antenatal wing, theatres, laboratories, pharmacy and accounts and administration block.

“In the third phase, we are taking solar to a new level to run laundry machines and pump water for patients and health workers. The solar tree is the latest technology. It beautifies the setting and utilises small space to generate more power. It can be adjusted to derive maximum power when weather is not favourable.  Interestingly, the system at Mulanje Mission Hospital has room for another solar tree,” said Sky Energy managing director Schizzo Thomson, who installed the system.

Water-energy nexus

The hospital is drilling boreholes where the solar-powered pumps will be installed to end water problems experienced by MMH workforce and patients in the dry season, especially in August and September when taps usually run dry.

However, clinicians are optimistic that the major gains will be registered in the hospital which sees 400 patients a day and delivers about 250 babies a month.

The water woes compromise sanitation and hygiene among patients and guardians, they say.

When we visited the hospital, the surrounding communities had gone two weeks without tap water.

“All this will be history soon. Now we have the power for improved health service provision and increased access to safe water,” said Kachikuwa.

Cries as Lake Chiuta dries

How can farmers and fishers co-exist as lakes dry? JAMES CHAVULA unravels one of silently steaming conflicts in a wetland less minded.

   

Stagnant pools, not a full-scale lake. Just dams in drying mud, not an expansive fishing ground with boats gliding where fishers feared to cast their nets in futile. An endangered wetland under a scorching sun.

Malawians surrounding Lake Chiuta offer grim flashbacks of the drying of the water body in the south-eastern border region.

“Life was tough around this time in 2016,” says Chief Ngokwe, explaining: “We used to walk on dry patches when crossing over to the neighbouring Mozambique.”

Their recollections bring to mind the biblical tale of how Israelites miraculously crossed the Red Sea in escape from Pharaoh’s army in Egypt.

But to the fishing community, it was neither a triumphant march of a chosen few—but a cause for worry for thousands throughout the villages along Lake Chiuta, north of Lake Chilwa.

A knee high

The two lakes, only separated by a sprawling sandy ridge, are hit hard by chronic drought which worsen hunger and poverty for millions of Malawians.

Hydrologists estimate that only a quarter of Lake Chiuta remained with water as crops wilted.

Satelite map of Lake Chiuta

Good rains in the 2017 growing season restored optimism in the wetland prone to climate shocks.

“The lake is rising, but not adequately. We need some more,” says Linosi Chikwanje, from the maize-growing Nafisi Village. But 2018 was no end to their misery as hopes for an exodus from hunger to surplus was dashed by another spate of drought.

Government estimates that almost 1.9 million farming families will need emergency food assistance this year.

At Big Chiuta, the deepest point, Njerwa villagers point to a line of eucalyptus, located almost 120 metres from the shoreline.

The rains started late and vanished too fast to fill the lake, they say.

“The lake used to fill all that stretch to the trees, but it has been receding for years. Five months of good rains were not going to be enough,” explains Ngokwe.

Most parts of the lake are just a knee-deep, even at Big Chiuta. The levels of the lake less visited cause anxiety in the families on its beach. Their fingers point one way—upstream.

A scheme under fire

The falling water levels have catalysed conflicts between the fishers and rice growers upstream.

Rice remains the widely grown in the wetland, occupying about 541 500 acres. However, it has come under fire following the construction of Kamwaza Rice Scheme along Lifunu River.

Discontent is growing downstream where the fishers accuse the architects of the scheme of blocking the lake’s inlet.

But the rice farmers say they only abstract a little water, leaving the rest flowing to the lake.

“The scheme may be to blame for the drying lake, but insufficient rains in recent times are also to blame,” says Fisheries Integration of Society and Habitats (Fish) Project official Elube Kachilola.

Statistics from the USAID-funded Fish Project show Lake Chiuta waterline is just about half its desired levels of 580 - 650mm.

But the fishers in 16 villages, who fled to Njerwa when the lake run dry two years ago, are having none of this arithmetic.

“Our area receives insufficient rains, but the lake would not have dried up fast if the river had been left to flow freely,” says Cecilia Jackson.

To Lake Chirwa Fisheries chairperson Mathias Mainala, the making of Kamwaza Rice Scheme was fraught with broken promises from the start.

“We saw this coming,” he says. “We expressed our worries at the onset, but the brains behind the scheme assured us that they would not disrupt the river. When we visited the intake recently, we were surprised to discover that their dam was full while the lake is drying.”

The fisher folk want a win-win deal.

“When the lake dries, we will be in trouble,” says Mainala.

Lifuni is equally stressed by drought and siltation. From a single-lane bridge where rice growers control water, we saw a frail rivulet trickling into a quarter-full dam—signaling a no less crisis upstream. From the gaping reservoir, weaker rivulets flow past a concrete slab to the rice scheme.

The fishing community blame this for the water stress in the lake.

   Ngokwe: Government had good intentions // Photo: James Chavula

Nobody likes to starve. ....Authorities must do something about it before the fishers and farmers start fighting for water.”

In 2017, Fish Project governance and capacity specialist Dick Kachilonda called for dialogue between the farmers and fishers. 
He argues: "The scheme is important for the food security in farming families, but there was need to eject the water back into the river for the benefit of villages on its banks and near the lake.

“Therefore, the fisheries and agriculture officials need to explore ways of ensuring both sides benefit” 

The misunderstanding rages as both crop yields and fish catches are declining due to climate change and breakdowns in the ecosystem.

According to Chief Ngokwe, the main problem is that the voices of the fishing communities “did not count” in the designing and running of the rice scheme. “Nobody likes to starve,” he says. “Government and its partners had good intentions when they constructed the scheme, but the way they diverted the water has brought more problems. Authorities must do something about it before the fishers and farmers start fighting for water.”

At stake is the right to water and global goals to end poverty by 2030. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) oblige governments and development partners to ensure everyone has enough water and food.

As rice flourishes upstream, fishers feel they are being left behind.