IEEE Electrification - September 2020 - 102

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IEEE Smart Village to the Rescue
EEE SMART VILLAGE (ISV)
has developed the SunBlazer IV and the Smart
Portable Battery Kit (PBK) in an effort
to provide quick access to electricity
in remote, off-the-grid locations
commonly found in Africa, Latin
America, the South Pacific Islands,
and elsewhere. The SunBlazer IV is
designed to include solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on a portable structure,
complete with battery control, battery, and charging stations to charge
PBKs. ISV is chartered to empower
villages with entrepreneurship opportunities to produce electricity,
enhance education, and empower
villagers with new businesses. ISV's
goal is to encourage business opportunity ventures that will grow and
become self-sustaining with unlimited possibilities for expansion.
With approximately 1 billion people in the world with little or no
access to electricity, sometimes it is
necessary to provide a kickstart. For
example, the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES), in conjunction with
ISV, is developing a project to bring
electricity to the schools in Honduras
that presently do not have lighting for
their classrooms. The IES and ISV are
first providing a simple PV system
with battery storage to deliver electricity to the classroom for lighting
and a projection system. Because the
entire village is off the grid, hopefully,
the next step will be to install a SunBlazer IV along with PBKs to allow the
students to take electricity home.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2020.3005742
Date of current version: 2 September 2020

102

Ultimately, the goal is for the village
to develop its own electric system to
offer better educational prospects
and promote successful businesses.
From there, the opportunities for
that village will become unlimited.
Imagine living at night in a humid
country with no lights, fans, refrigeration, cell phone, or Internet. It may
remind many of you of going on a
camping trip where even the mosquitoes were unbearable. Please visit
smartvillage.ieee.org for more information and ieeefoundation.org/
smart-village to make a donation
through the IEEE Foundation.

ISV to the Rescue
When the coronavirus spread to Illorin, the state capital of Kwara in

The SunBlazer IV.

western Nigeria, a medical center
was built to isolate and treat the rapidly increasing number of COVID-19
patients. But like other communities
in country, the facility had limited
access to electricity. That was until
Shaybis Nigeria Ltd (SNL) donated a
SunBlazer IV solar-powered system.
The system was designed by ISV volunteers and is currently supplying
electricity to two of the facility's four
wings. Based in Illorin, SNL is one of
three international manufacturers of
the SunBlazer IV system and has
been building renewable energy solar
systems in Nigeria for more than
three years.
"These beds will be used to
treat and provide care for those
infected with the coronavirus to
help avoid spreading it to others,"
said the company's Chief Executive Officer Chief Tunde Salihu, a
Senior Member of the IEEE. "The
solar power system will enable the
medical team to power ventilators,
monitoring machines, and sanitation equipment."
The facility was formally commissioned by the government in May.
Since the installation, Salihu reports
that his company has been retained
by the government to provide electricity for a number of doctors' offices and other medical facilities.

The SunBlazer History

The battery and charging station.

IE E E E l e c t r i f i c ati o n M agaz ine / SEPTEMBER 2020

A team of IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) volunteers and industry professionals designed and developed
the original SunBlazer to help Haiti
after the country was devastated by
an earthquake in 2010. Following this

http://smartvillage.ieee.org http://www.ieeefoundation.org/smart-village http://www.ieeefoundation.org/smart-village

IEEE Electrification - September 2020

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