Suntech and the Community

Suntech donated 10 kW of solar modules to non-profit Nurturing Minds, which runs a girls school in Morogoro, Tanzania. This remote region of Tanzania is home to the Sega Girls School, which currently provides education and housing for over 50 local girls who would otherwise receive no education. Solar energy plays a key role in the organization's vision of educating 200 girls a year by 2015.

In July 2010, Suntech donated 53 sets of 50W solar home systems to households without electricity in Jie Village of Lhatse County, Tibet. The residents of this village represented a fraction of the 1.5 billion people around the world who do not have reliable access to energy, and the 2.5 billion who rely on biomass or diesel fuel as their primary source of energy. These types of fuel often require large amounts of time and resources to obtain, and these people have no better or less costly options available to meet their basic energy needs.

Jie Village is located in the southern part of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, near the center of the Brahmaputra River Basin. Because of its remoteness, electric grid coverage is not possible and the village never had electricity. For many years, the villagers were dependent on the sun as well as manure, straw, and other biomass for power. The need for electric power became a major constraint for the growth and prosperity of Jie Village.

Suntech's donation consisted of 53 complete off-grid solar home systems, each of which included a solar module with 50W output, power storage, a control device, an AC electricity socket, and energy-efficient light bulbs. Several fundamental characteristics of these systems that made them ideal for Tibet were that they could be transported easily in the back of a road vehicle, installed by a layperson with a few simple tools, and operated with the push of a single button.

These systems were distributed by the village committee to individual homes, one set per household. The installation crew that Suntech provided was divided into groups of three or four people, who then spent a full day travelling by foot across mountainous terrain, installing solar panels one by one on the widely scattered homes of the village. Suntech engineers gave the villagers some basic training, including a demonstration of the installation process and operational methods, and ensured that they had hands-on experience in using their new home power systems.

On the morning of August 21, 2010, "Tibet's Lhatse County Jie Village Energy Celebration" was held to commemorate the beginning of a new lifestyle of electric lighting and clean power for village residents.

The "Green Cell" Project is an environmental service-learning project of the Green Club at McNeil High School, Round Rock Independent School District, in Round Rock, Texas. In 2009, we applied for and received an amazing grant from the State Farm Youth Advisory Board. Our grant allowed us to promote the use of alternative "green" energy (such as solar and wind) and low-cost methods to increase energy efficiency (compact fluorescent light bulbs, solar screens, insulation) in our school district and in the larger community. It has been quite a journey. In 2011, we officially launched a 10 KW solar array which will provide our school with solar power and educate our students.

The "Green Cell" Project had several goals. First, we adopted a school portable building as an energy conservation demonstration site. We proceeded to paint the portable a bright green so that it stood out. Then, we made it more energy efficient by installing new, more efficient bulbs and ballasts, solar screens on the windows, caulking and weather-stripping and a new thermostat. For more information, check out the video clip attached below!

Another goal was to educate younger students about the importance of THINKING GREEN. We visited several elementary schools to teach students about recycling, solar power, conserving energy and gasoline.

But the high point of our project has been our new solar array! In 2010, several students and faculty from our school held a conference call with our engineers from URS and representatives from Suntech. Based on the educational merit of the project, Suntech agreed to donate a very large set of solar panels (40 panels, or a 10 kilowatt system) to the Green Club in support of the project for only the price of shipping. As a result, the grant allowed the club to install one of the largest roof-top solar arrays on a school roof in Central Texas!

Now, with the use of internet technology, we plan to track solar energy use, carbon off-sets, and cost savings through our use of renewable energy and share them on the web. In the year to come, the Green Club plans to educate our school, so that all students know what solar energy is and how it works. We will continue our job and help make the planet greener!

- Kayla Saythongkham (Green Club Secretary)

For more information about the Green Club or the "Green Cell" Project, contact club sponsor, Tina Vick at (512) 464-6300 or Christine_vick@roundrockisd.org. Media coverage of the Green Cell Project:

MLK Day (Jan. 18, 2010) – My Fox Austin News: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/news/local/11810-HS-Students-Mark-MLK-Day-with-Service

MLK Day (Jan. 18, 2010) – KVUE News - http://www.kvue.com/video/featured-videos/Students-honor-Martin-Luther-King-Jr-with-a-Day-of-Service-81994482.html

Earth Day Coverage (April, 2010) - http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/Earth-Day-events-pick-up-in-popularity

Founded in 1985, Project Open Hand provides meals, groceries, and nutritional counseling to people living with HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, seniors, and homebound people living with serious illnesses in San Francisco and Alameda counties. Today, Project Open Hand serves over 2,600 meals every day and 1,500 grocery shops each week. To date, Project Open Hand has delivered over 15 million meals with love to people in need.

Food service is an energy intensive operation. We need gas to cook, electricity to cool, water to clean … and we need it every single day of the year. Walk into the Project Open Hand kitchen or one of our grocery centers and you can literally hear the energy being consumed: walk-in coolers hum keeping produce fresh, open a freezer door and you will feel the blast of cold air before you even hear the fans. 300 lbs of stew meat sizzles as it hits the hot surface of a 40 gallon tilting skillet and various other noises animate the daily hustle of kitchen life. As you can imagine, we have one whopper of a utility bill!

In 2005, Project Open Hand launched the Green Solutions Initiative with the intention of greening every facet of our operation. Our goal was to reduce our carbon footprint and our impact on the environment as well as lower our operating costs because every dollar saved is money we can use to purchase nutritious food for the people we serve. In 2007, Project Open Hand christened our brand new solar power system, featuring Photovoltaic panels for electrical energy production and Solar Thermal panels for heating water. Four years later, the installation is finally complete!

Project Open Hand is committed to the environment and social responsibility. That's why we're cooking with solar. We harness the sunlight so that we can continue to serve meals with love to our neighbors in need.

Written by Project Open Hand