Solar energy
Supporting the use and spread of solar energy is one of our most important activities in Togo
Installation and maintenance of solar plants
Successfully running demonstration plants are an important trigger for a new solar market such as Togo. Therefore, we installed a number of solar PV plants on specially selected buildings. Regular maintenance guarantees the reliable functioning of these plants.
PV plant on the roof of CEB
The headquarters of the state-owned power utility company CEB is in Lomé. In 2012, we installed the first grid-connected solar PV plant in Togo on its roof, with a capacity of 7,4 kWp. The plant feeds into the headquarters’ home network and serves as a pilot and demonstration plant for the company’s engineers. By using installed webboxes the data which has been measured by the radiation sensors can also be analysed in Germany. This type of plant monitoring has never been applied in Togo before.
Electricity and solar cooling on the building of Kinderrechte Afrika e.V. in Sokodé
Kinderrechte Afrika e.V. (Children’s rights Africa) runs a facility in Sokodé which offers shelter to children in need. For said facility we installed a 10kW solar PV plant and a solar cooling plant in 2015/2016. As of today, most of the building’s current and cooling load is covered by the installed plants.
Solar PV plant on the local hospital of SOS-Kinderdorf in Dapaong, northern Togo
The installation of the solar PV plant on the hospital of SOS-Kinderdorf (SOS children`s village) has been supported and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Since 2016, a PV generator of 6kW supplies electricity to the local hospital, even in the case of a power outage of the public grid, contributing to an improved health care.
Solar thermal plants in hospitals and maternity wards
Apart from providing solar PV plants for electricity production, we also run solar thermal plants in nine hospitals and maternity wards. These solar water heaters allow a sustainable and secure supply with warm water for the daily use in a hospital, and most prominently in the maternity wards. Before gaining access to safe water, these hospitals used water that had been heated over woodfire and filled into bottles. Not only was that water not always sufficiently disinfected; its heating also required a high amount of wood and therefore aggravated deforestation.
Vocational training in the solar sector
Providing educational training is one of the main aspects of our work, which we implement through a variety of mechanisms:
- We operate two Solartrainer in the solar laboratory of the University of Lomé and the Lycée Technique in Sokodé.
- Every year we support 20 graduates of technical vocational schools with internships in local solar companies.
- In a joint project with the Togolese Ministry of Education and in order to support theoretical training with practical elements we supplied local vocational schools with five solarkits as demonstration objects for their daily education.
- Moreover, in 2016, our Solar Curriculum has been validated by the state of Togo and is used as a regular school book in vocational schools. The Ministry of Education furthermore wants to extend the use of solarkits as well as the use of the solar curriculum to other Lycées in the country.
Political Work
Our local URBIS team members regularly participate in events on topics such as electrification and renewable energies in Togo. Every two months, we publish a Newsletter, which addresses current developments on the solar market in Togo and the neighbouring countries. We are working together with other Togolese solar organisations to sensitise for a necessary improvement of the conditions of the solar market in Togo.
Our local employees in Togo install and maintain solar plants (PV and thermal). In addition, they also offer consultancy services on the topic of solar energy for other organisations in Togo.