Reliable energy solution
Ghana has many remote rural communities. Providing medical treatment and facilities at these locations is sometimes hard. This is not only caused by the remoteness of the location itself, but also by the lack of a stable electricity supply from the national grid, that is if there is any grid supply at all. However the Ghana Health Services, with the help of Victron Energy partner Elecnor SA, are now providing a sophisticated solution to implement the power necessary for reliable medical care, ensuring ‘Energy. Anytime. Anywhere.’

Mobile clinics for remote communities
To support these remote communities without a grid connection, the Ghana Health Services use mobile clinics. These mobile vehicle clinics have a complete set of clinical-electrical equipment on board. Powering the equipment, like a microscope for malaria testing, a centrifuge and a haematology mixer, was previously achieved using a diesel generator, which was the only source of power. This needed to be turned on, each time a doctor was occupied with a patient. This not only made the project costly, but it also created a noisy working environment and localised pollution. A further disadvantage in using a diesel engine is that vaccines could not be maintained, as storing the vaccines requires constant power; a precondition that could not be met with the generator.

Energy. Anytime. Anywhere.
Elecnor SA has solved these challenges by installing an integrated solar power system. Currently the mobile clinics are powered by five solar panels, mounted on the vehicle’s roof, providing a total of 425 Watts of solar power. Optimised battery charging is achieved using two 30A solar charge controllers. Two 185 Ah GEL batteries are used to store the harvested energy and supply the DC and AC loads via a 350 Watt Victron Energy inverter.

To guarantee that the vaccine refrigerator is always powered, a separate set of two 100 Ah Victron Energy batteries is connected. Now the mobile clinic can run independently from a generator, without noise or pollution. The separate set of batteries ensures that the vaccine refrigerator is constantly powered; so vaccines are always available.

This installation now ensures a robust, reliable and quiet power solution, when compared to the previous use of a diesel generator. That is the power of good healthcare.