Solar-Powered Desalination System Opened A Plant In Kenya To Provide 35,000 People Access To Clean Drinking Water Everyday

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People living in first world countries in Europe and North America take their access to clean water for granted. Wasting it incessantly on cleaning cars and watering lawns whenever they so desire.

The World Health Organization came out with an estimate that about 2.2 billion people across the world still don’t have easy access to fresh drinking water in their everyday lives – especially the nations of sub-Saharan Africa.

If you think about it, these statistics seem ironic when you consider the fact that two-thirds of the earth’s surface is comprised of water. However, over 96 percent of this water is made up of salt water, which is not potable.

Because of this, GivePower Foundation has developed a possible solution to this ongoing problem. In August 2018, the NGO started operating a solar-powered desalination plant in Kenya’s east coast called Kiunga. Located along the Indian Ocean, this small fishing community is the source of clean and drinkable water for roughly 35,000 people everyday, according to Interesting Engineering.


Source: https://www.sunnyskyz.com

What began as a non-profit subsidiary of SolarCity, a company co-founded by Elon Musk in 2006, SolarCity then merged with Tesla in 2016, making GivePower an independent organization before the merger was set in place.

The desalination systems of this NGO is housed in 20-foot shipping containers that convert almost 20,000 gallons (75,000 liters) of saltwater into potable water that is fit to drink. These shipping containers are constructed with solar panels that produce 50 kilowatts energy inside Tesla batteries and two water pumps that are working 24 hours.

Having these desalination systems have dramatically improved the lives of 3,500 villagers in Kiunga and around that region since their easy access to clean water. The African nation has been experiencing severe drought in the last five years, leading their citizens into extreme malnutrition, and eventually death.

GivePower has made a statement that their installations can provide access to clean water for 20 years, costing only $20 per person. This not only brings health benefits to the residents of the said region, but a lifeline to the suffering local economy as well.

Before the installation of the plant, people had to travel over an hour just to get clean water for themselves and their families.


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GivePower’s president, Hayes Barnard told Business Insider:

“It was a really dire situation for this community… Children walking around the community with wounds [and] lesions on their body from washing clothes in salt water.”

Using contaminated water for cooking, drinking and bathing led to various health problems for the residents of the region. They got deadly diseases such as cholera, parasites, dysentery and other waterborne illnesses that poisoned everyone in the community.

Barnard’s biggest hope is for the non-profit’s plants to help bring a solution to the other 844 million people around the globe who still have access to clean drinking water – and especially to the 300,000 children who die from extreme malnutrition, disease and dehydration.

“Humanity needs to take a swift action to address the increasingly severe global water crisis that faces the developing world. With our background in off-grid clean energy, GivePower can immediately help by deploying solar water from solutions to save lives in areas throughout the world that suffer from prolonged water scarcity,” says Barnard.

 

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