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Rural Rwanda is home to a pioneering new solar power idea.
A group of London graduates have, apparently against the odds, helped thousands of people in Africa access energy from the sun. Could their idea teach power providers in the West a thing or two?
Rural Rwanda is home to a pioneering new solar power idea
Nearly 20% of the world’s population has no electricity. Rachel Nuwer tells the story of a group of London graduates who, apparently against the odds, have helped thousands of people in Africa access energy from the Sun. Could their idea teach power providers in the West a thing or two?
By Rachel Nuwer
9 October 2017
Fidel Mberabagabo lives down a dirt path in a modest, hand-built mud and concrete home surrounded on either side by hazy, gently cresting green hills. Like most people in this part of Rwanda’s rural Rwamagana district, he is a farmer. Also like them, finances are strained; he never knows just how much he will make in a given month. But Mberabagabo’s life does now differ from that of many of his neighbours in one important way: he has electricity.
Grand Ideas
The 21st Century is continually throwing us new challenges and expecting us to adapt – but for every Earth-shattering megatrend, there are dozens of genius solutions. Follow them all in BBC Future's special series, Grand Ideas.
In the developed world, people take for granted that light bulbs will turn on with the flick of a switch; that they can access unlimited power to charge copious devices; and that their well-stocked fridges and artificially cooled and heated homes will maintain just the right temperature.
But as anyone who has weathered the aftermath of a hurricane or found themselves in the midst of a major blackout will attest, if these precious amenities are taken away, life largely comes to a halt.
Yet for all our dependency on power, some 1.2 billion people around the world – 16% of the global population – do not have access to it at all.
Back in Rwanda, for example, less than 20% of the population live in homes that enjoy electricity – a fact that stymies development and reinforces poverty. It’s a huge problem that defines many of the problems we face in the 21st Century.
To some, however, such statistics ring not of hopelessness, but of opportunity.
“This is such an untapped market,” says Laurent Van Houcke, chief operations officer of BBOXX, a London-based company that brings off-grid energy to the developing world. “There are massive opportunities for entrepreneurship, as well as great possibilities for impacting lives.”
For Van Houcke and his colleagues, rural residents like Mberabagabo who lack electricity are not charity cases, but bona fide customers.
Their solution: a for-profit company that manufactures, installs and affordably loans out sturdy, hyper-efficient solar-powered chargers. In just four years, they have brought power to around 130,000 homes and businesses in 35 countries – by 2020, they're aiming for more than a million.
Breaking the mould
It all began at Imperial College London. While others focused on buffing up CVs for future careers in banking or the consultancy sector, electrical engineering students Van Houcke and his two BBOXX co-founders, Christopher Baker-Brian and Mansoor Hamayun, decided to found Equinox: a charity devoted to electrifying a few communities in Rwanda.
Africa will largely bypass the grid and leapfrog over Europe and North America straight into solar
In summer 2009, when they flew into Kigali, Rwanda’s friendly, laid-back capital, they could clearly see the challenge the country faced. The hilly city’s numerous lookout points afforded sweeping views of attractive buildings painted in shades of cream and yellow, interspersed with parks and a few high rises. But after sundown, a previously invisible divider revealed itself: the light abruptly stopped outside of the capital’s tight core.
How would Rwanda ever realise its goal of becoming “the Singapore of Africa” if so many of its citizens still lacked access to electricity?
Rather than stay in Kigali, they spent the majority of their time living and working in a rural Rwandan community of around 200 households. As they explored various ways to get power to their new neighbours, they realised that the grid will never supply those in Rwanda and beyond who currently lack electricity: such communities are dispersed over immense areas, and are too poor to afford such extensive infrastructure.
That’s when they arrived at a grand idea: they concluded that Africa will largely bypass the grid and leapfrog over Europe and North America straight into solar – just as it did in skipping landlines, a rarity in rural Africa, in favour of cell phones.
Encouragingly, their field investigations also revealed that many Africans in these communities were completely open to the idea of paying for solar energy.
“If you go to a customer and tell them, ‘You’re spending $5-$20 per month on kerosene and batteries, but for the same amount, you can have electricity’ – well, it’s a pretty easy sell,” says Hamayun, BBOXX’s chief executive officer. “Governments and development agencies also understand that solar is the long-term solution for those customers.”
This encouraged them to revamp their charity into a for-profit venture.
“Ultimately, our motivation was to scale the business, which meant making money and charging customers rather than seeing them as beneficiaries,” says Baker-Brian, BBOXX’s chief technology officer.
So why become a money-making business? It meant investing in the long term: freebie projects and charity-organised giveaways often fail to make a lasting impact because they tend to be one-offs, he says, and their dependency on donor funds likewise constrains their scope.
The company would need to raise investor funding to enable them to build a team and get the technology up to par. Yet despite their discoveries on the ground, nearly everyone they approached, as Hamayun puts it, “thought what we’re doing was really risky and not scalable, because it’s Africa.”
Freebie projects and charity-organised giveaways often fail to make a lasting impact
The first round of funding proved exceptionally difficult to raise, he continues, because there was no real precedent for doing technology business in Africa. “These are customers who have been underserved in every possible way,” he says.
They eventually found an initial investor, Khosla Impact, that believed in the idea. Meanwhile, three other similar off-grid solar companies also emerged around the same time that BBOXX launched.
Indeed, pay-as-you-go solar is an increasingly popular solution for bringing electricity to those in Africa who have never had it before.
Mobisol, a Berlin-based company, has installed 85,000 units in Tanzania and Rwanda; Off Grid Electric, based in San Francisco, serves 50,000 homes in Tanzania; and M-KOPA, a Kenyan company, has provided power to over 500,000 homes in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Efforts have so far concentrated on East Africa, but it’s no doubt a matter of time before more companies join the roster and existing ones expand. According to a recent World Bank Group report, energy storage in emerging markets worldwide are expected to grow 40% each year over the next decade.
The technology itself, it turned out, was the simplest part of getting such operations up and running. In BBOXX’s case, solar energy gathered from a panel on the roof is stored overnight, while remote connectivity over 2G cell networks allows for geolocation and performance data to be sent back to headquarters. Algorithms monitor the units’ health and allow the team to proactively replace fading batteries (usually, after about three years).
As for payments, the team realised early on that rural customers would never be able to afford to buy a BBOXX unit outright. So they opted instead for pay-as-you-go monthly installment plans. “That removes the massive upfront barrier that’s often the case for solar systems in the developing world,” Baker-Brian says.
Customers can also buy accessories that BBOXX designed to minimise energy use, including shavers, smartphones and a 24-inch television that consumes 11 watts of power compared to an equivalent Western model’s 24 watts.
Finally, people can pay with mobile phone money transfers. “We don’t take any cash,” Baker-Brian says. “We’re 100% mobile money” – a decision that capitalises on a preference for cash-free payments that’s popping up across Africa.
Overlooked no more
Five months ago, when BBOXX established an office in Rwamagana, the district where Mberabagabo lives, he was one of the first to sign up. The technology, he says, “has changed my life.”
His family’s four lights have increased their sense of security against would-be trespassers, and he also appreciates that he no longer has to burn candles and lamps that emit smoke, which he knows is bad for his children’s health. A father of five, the lights mean that Mberabagabo’s older kids can read and study into the night, and go to bed later. “Now, there’s plenty of time to do whatever we need to do,” he says.
13-year-old Claude, his eldest child, says he “loves” the television that his family rents along with the box itself – their first TV. For optimal viewing, Mberabagabo set it up in a sort of home cinema room, windowless, cool and completely barren save for the TV and the benches located opposite for watching. Though transfixed by a Brazilian football match on a recent afternoon, Claude – who would like to be a teacher when he grows up – insists that the news is his favourite programme. Shy and polite, he stands by this unexpected answer, even when a foreign journalist asks him if he’s sure sports and cartoons aren’t his favourites.
“Now I’m able to know who is who in the government,” he explains. “I can ask better questions at school.”
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Parks and bicycles were lifelines after Mexico City's earthquake.
Open spaces and nimble rides were crucial as volunteers collected and dispersed supplies amid toppled infrastructure.
Seconds after a powerful earthquake struck Mexico City on September 19, the mobile phone network was down. Stoplights ceased to function as electricity failed, and the city’s streets had turned into one vast traffic jam. In a few frantic minutes, millions of people were driven out of buildings into the public space, incommunicado except for the wi-fi network.
In the aftermath, the quality of the city’s public infrastructure became of supreme importance for its citizens—and in some cases, even a matter of life and death.
Following a disaster, “the difference between the sidewalk and the pavement of the road disappears and people start walking everywhere,” says Jesus Iglesias, a civil engineer who researched the seismic impact of Mexico City’s major 1985 earthquake on the city’s buildings. He says people instinctively avoid buildings after tremors—worrying that glass, rocks, or ornaments could tumble down—and they meet in the street.
Even so, “going on foot is not a very good way of travelling in an area struck by a disaster,” says Ivan de la Lanza, director of pedestrian and bicycle mobility of the World Resources Institute Mexico. “The best option is the bicycle.”
In the rush to get somewhere after the earthquake, bicycles and motorcycles emerged as the safest, fastest, and most-effective option. These wove past rubble and through traffic with relative ease. Bicycles played three basic roles in the disaster response: first as a mobility option for navigating obstructed streets without contributing to vehicular chaos, then as couriers of medicines and other light supplies, and finally as a way to scout heavily damaged areas before larger vehicles entered.
Since the city’s bike-sharing system doesn’t operate totally independently from the electric grid, many of the Ecobici bike-sharing stations were down in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Some other stations didn’t lose power; a few run on solar cells and batteries. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many people did use the available bicycles.
Mexico City’s subway system lost five of its 13 lines due to electricity failure, making the BRT lines the only transport option aside from walking and cycling in many parts of the megalopolis. The BRT system continued working at 70 percent capacity that first afternoon and night, according to Jesus Padilla, CEO of CISA, which operates of Line 1 of Mexico City’s Metrobus.
“The confined lanes of the Metrobus were the only way for our ambulance services to get around Mexico City after the earthquake,” said paramedic Rodrigo de Lara as he waited at night in an ambulance outside of Mexico’s Hospital General in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Many of the city’s public parks and squares came to play a central role in recovery, too. Like in 1985 when the square around Mexico City’s Monumento de la Revolución became the main center for relief efforts, these spaces function as an initial refuge for people fleeing damaged building and as hubs for organizing rescue efforts.
Shovels, food, and medicine have been collected at the Parque Mexico and Parque Pushkin, where large paved surfaces helped facilitate the earthquake response in nearby neighborhoods. When cars could pass through the streets, they would arrive in the parks to drop off supplies; cyclists would fan out to disperse them. Centers for finding lost pets, psychiatric assistance, and childcare soon arose within the parks. Local residents donated rescue materials and provisions of food for volunteers.
“The ability to host different people with different [needs] in itself is part of a good park,” says Paul van der Voort, co-founder of Mexico City architecture and urbanism bureau DafDF. “In a disaster you see that the multi functionality of parks and public spaces becomes even more important, since the disaster creates radically different necessities which have to be resolved in the public space. Social response to a disaster also depends on people knowing each other beforehand, and this is easier in places with well-designed parks and squares.”
In the aftermath of a disaster, a city has the opportunity to redefine its priorities. The September 19 earthquake reminded Mexico City of the crucial role that public space plays in the aftermath of a catastrophe. BRT lanes and bike sharing plans are not just progressive ways of reducing pollution and traffic; they are central to a city’s capacity for disaster response. Parks and plazas proved themselves to be not just pleasant public amenities, but crucial safety valves. This megacity’s resilience in the face of this earthquake is predicated on public efforts in public spaces—and that should guide urban planning in the future.
About the Author
Feike de Jong
FEED
Feike de Jong is a journalist and urban researcher in Mexico City. He is the creator of the app, “Limits: On foot along the edge of the megalopolis of the Valley of Mexico."
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Solar grid keeps harvests high, hospitals lit in parched rural Zimbabwe.
With worsening droughts drying fields and hydropower, solar energy is providing a way forward in rural areas.
With worsening droughts drying fields and hydropower, solar energy is providing a way forward in rural areas
By Tonderayi Mukeredzi
MASHABA, Zimbabwe, Sept 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Until recently, farmers in this town in southern Zimbabwe struggled to water their crops, frustrated by poor rainfall and the regular breakdown of the diesel engines that powered their irrigation systems.
As in most areas of rural Zimbabwe, rain-fed agriculture provides most of the jobs in this part of Gwanda district, some 130km (80 miles) southeast of Bulawayo.
But sparse rains over the last decade, a worsening problem associated with climate change, have caused many harvests to fail, and cut into the country's generation of hydropower, which provides much of its electricity.
In Mashaba, however, the community's luck is turning. In 2015, the town installed a solar mini-grid power station that has helped green the hot, arid area transform into a hive of entrepreneurial activity.
The off-grid power system, with 400 solar panels that provide nearly 100 kilowatts of reliable power, has made it possible to effectively irrigate crops, boosting farming yields and fuelling economic growth. Local leaders say schools have become more productive and medical facilities safer.
The $3.2 million mini-grid was funded by the European Union, the OPEC Fund for International Development and the Global Environment Facility as part of a drive to promote universal access to modern energy in rural areas. Its construction was overseen by Practical Action Southern Africa, a development charity.
The plant powers the Mankonkoni and Rustlers Gorge irrigation schemes, which cover 32 hectares (79 acres) and 42 hectares (104 acres) respectively; the Mashaba Primary School; a business centre with three shops; the Mashaba Clinic; and the Masendani Business Centre, which has four shops and an energy kiosk.
A board of trustees selected by the community is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the mini-grid, and community members have been trained to maintain and operate it.
The mini-grid will be co-owned by an independent power producer and the community through the trust.
A view of solar panels as part of a community solar mini-grid in Mashaba, Zimbabwe. THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION/Tonderayi Mukeredzi
BIGGER HARVESTS
Thomas Makhalima, a Mashaba councillor, says an estimated 10,000 people are benefiting directly from the clean power grid.
In their area, often affected by drought, "we depend a lot on government relief aid. But the food donations have lessened because some people can feed themselves through the irrigation schemes", he said.
Makhalima said a third irrigation project will soon be connected to the grid, and negotiations are advancing to connect a new border post with Botswana at nearby Mlambapeli as well.
Mpokiseng Moyo, a mother of three who grows winter wheat on a plot of 0.2 hectares (0.5 acres) at Rustlers Gorge, said that in the past she could barely produce a tonne of food.
Now, since the new power supply was installed, she can easily harvest 15 tonnes, she said.
Moyo is one of 41 farmers – 26 women and 15 men – who collectively own an irrigation plant that services the 42 hectares at Rustlers Gorge.
"Before being connected to the solar grid, we irrigated our crops using diesel pumps and travelled as far as Gwanda (more than 100km away) to buy diesel for the pumps," she said.
"The pumps broke down many times, affecting productivity. But with solar energy we are able to farm throughout the year without any hassles," Moyo said.
Selling the surplus harvest has made it possible for her to send her children to school and buy provisions for the family, she said.
A solar energy kiosk in Mashaba, Zimbabwe, which now operates its own solar mini-grid system. THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION/Tonderayi Mukeredzi
POWER FOR SCHOOL, HOSPITAL
Obert Joseph Ncube, the deputy head of Mashaba Primary School, said the school's enrolment figures and exam results have improved because the presence of a reliable power supply has dissuaded teachers from transferring to other schools.
"We've registered an improvement in Grade 7 (pass) results from 21.5 percent in 2014 to 53.9 percent in 2016, which is a positive upward trend premised on our retention of all qualified staff," Ncube said.
At Mashaba Clinic, health workers no longer need to work by torchlight at night, including when delivering babies.
"It was difficult for us to operate or suture patients using candlelight or mobile phones, which meant procedures took longer to finish, or we had to wait till daylight or refer the patients elsewhere," said a health official at the clinic, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Pregnant women who come to the clinic to give birth are no longer required to bring their own candles, kerosene lamps and matches.
According to the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, only about 40 percent of Zimbabweans have electrical power, and only 13 percent in rural areas.
Rural communities meet 94 percent of their energy requirements from traditional fuels, mostly wood.
The biggest test for the Mashaba community will be to keep their solar grid functioning. At present, community members do not pay for electricity while they await a determination on the tariff to be charged.
"We've installed a prepayment system but we are still working on the tariff system. Once a tariff is agreed with ZESA (the state-owned power utility), the energy regulator and the community, users will then start paying," said Shepherd Masuka, Practical Action's project officer for sustainable energy for rural communities.
The income will be used to maintain the grid, he said.
Ncube, who also serves as secretary for the Mashaba Board of Trustees and a spokesman for the grid, said that people are happy to pay to keep power coming.
"We've had meetings with farmers and they are already putting aside some grain reserves so that when they are asked to start paying for electricity they are ready," he said.
(Reporting by Tonderayi Mukeredzi; editing by James Baer and Laurie Goering :; P
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In Houston, a terrifying real-life lesson for disaster-prone cities.
Cities across the country that live with the threat of disaster — from earthquakes in San Francisco to hurricanes in Miami — are watching the catastrophe in Houston for lessons learned.
LOS ANGELES — Cities across the country that live with the threat of disaster — from earthquakes in San Francisco to hurricanes in Miami — are anxiously watching the catastrophe unfolding in Houston for lessons learned, cautionary tales, anything to soften the blow when their residents are the ones in danger.
“We know we are racing against the clock,” said Elaine Forbes, the executive director of the Port of San Francisco, her office buttressed by a century-old sea wall that could collapse in an earthquake. “Seeing Houston stoked the fire.”
Emergency disaster officials in cities like Baltimore, Boston and Seattle have spent the last week and a half monitoring how Texan government officials and storm-affected residents are responding to a crisis that destroyed homes and disrupted electricity, drinking water and communications.
The causes might be different, but the devastation and social disruption can be similar from disaster to disaster. As such, Houston is offering other cities a real-life run-through of their own emergency plans as well as a stark reminder of the inevitability of such events.
“We look at this and realize that while they might be under water, we someday will be under crumbled buildings,” said Eric M. Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles. “And it will take years, if not decades, to rebuild.”
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James Redick, the director of emergency preparedness and response in Norfolk, Va., a city that has found itself vulnerable to hurricanes over the years, said he watched the water rise in Houston and began worrying about his own city’s plans to rebuild after a cataclysmic flood.
“I keep asking myself, is our recovery plan good enough for when you essentially have to start over?” Mr. Redick said.
Speaking before Hurricane Irma set its sights on South Florida, Juvenal Santana, Miami’s director of public works, expressed relief last week that his city was not the one in distress. “I’d be lying if I said we are not thankful that we are not sitting here talking about having had the storm come through Miami,” he said.
In Chicago, a city that lives under the threat of tornadoes, blizzards and overflowing rivers, officials watched the Houston response in search of new ways to guide a major population center through a crisis.
“I’m shooting notes over to my guys who work in emergency management and saying, ‘Hey, when was the last time we updated our shelters?’” said Alicia Tate-Nadeau, executive director of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications. “‘Do we have a plan to put computers in our shelters, along with phone-charging banks?’”
Some of the lessons, officials said, have been encouraging, in particular the initial willingness of Republicans in Washington, some of whom famously resisted providing assistance after Hurricane Sandy pummeled New York and New Jersey in 2012, to approve the billions of dollars that will be needed to rebuild.
Photo
A view of Jersey City from lower Manhattan as hurricane Sandy approached in 2012. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
But for many emergency response leaders in major cities, Houston has also been a disturbing reminder of how even the best emergency plans are often not up to the task.
“It makes you realize, these megastorms, if you haven’t been hit by one, your worst-case scenario is nowhere near a true worst-case scenario,” said Daniel J. Kelly, the executive director of the New Jersey Office of Recovery and Rebuilding, as he recalled his state’s struggle to respond to Hurricane Sandy.
In Seattle, which has been bracing for a long-overdue and potentially devastating earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Coast, officials said Houston has underscored what they have been trying to instill into residents, police and fire agencies and hospitals: assume that nothing will work, from communications systems to roads and electricity grids.
“They need to have themselves ready to be on their own, just like an awful lot of folks are stranded and on their own down in Texas,” said Barb Graff, Seattle’s emergency management director.
For city officials who would have to manage these kind of crises, Houston has been a reminder of one of the toughest parts of their jobs. Martin J. Walsh, the mayor of Boston, told a radio audience that a storm of that magnitude would leave the city “wiped out.”
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“It’s made me take a real serious look at how we would handle a storm,” Mr. Walsh said in an interview. “Hopefully a lot of cities and towns around America take their time and pay attention to what’s happening.”
Mr. Walsh said he had talked with the city’s water and sewer engineer about how much rain Boston could absorb without flooding, and had considered which neighborhoods might need to be evacuated. He said the city only had access to 7,200 cots, far fewer than he feared would be necessary in the event of massive flooding.
“Our financial district is pretty much on the coast,” Mr. Walsh said. And a number of the city’s neighborhoods, he added, are on the water.
Across Miami and other Florida cities, like Tampa and Orlando, Harvey ushered in a common refrain: There but for the grace of God. Like Houston, Miami is flat and has gobbled up wetlands like the Everglades and coastal stretches to build and build. The more a city has been paved over, the greater the chance of flooding.
There has typically been an uptick in disaster preparation in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe — the 1994 Northridge earthquake here prompted many people to stockpile water and batteries, and some cities passed laws requiring vulnerable buildings to install reinforcing walls and pillars. That was just as typically followed by a return to normal behavior as the memory of the disaster faded.
But Lucy Jones, who served for 33 years as a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Service, and was recruited by Mr. Garcetti as his top earthquake adviser, said the reaction to Houston this week has led her to believe that has changed because of the ability of people across the world to feel the disaster up close through arresting images on their mobile phones.
“This will increase public awareness,” she said. “All of these gripping pictures of people in their flooded houses — we are looking at it in real time — is a change in the emotional reaction that I had seen in the past. Think about it: What can you tell me about Hurricane Camille?”
She suggested that events in Houston would thus provide the same kind of motivation to people in Southern California to prepare for the worst as a series of minor temblors did here in 2014.
Scott Ashley, 46, who works the Los Angeles Unified School District, said he remembered the earthquake of 1994, and that in the days since the flooding began in Houston, he had refreshed the emergency kit he had set up to help his family survive the next one.
“We are very ready,” he said. “We have our emergency kits, we have our evacuation plans, M.R.E.’s, water, kits for tents, warm weather supplies, storage space for materials, a kit that will take care of our family for at least 3 days.”
And Los Angeles got a reminder this weekend of the kind of disasters it might have to deal with beyond earthquakes, as wildfires broke out in parts of the city, destroying three homes and closing down a highway as temperatures soared above 100 degrees.
Walt Hubbard, the emergency manager for King County, which includes Seattle, said the Texas experience has demonstrated that many disasters can go on for weeks or even months, and that residents should be prepared for the long haul.
For Sam Liccardo, the mayor of San Jose, Houston reinforced the need for shelters evenly spread across the city and powerful but portable pumps, which his aides are now looking to purchase. “Nothing motivates action like the dreadful disaster that we see in Houston,” Mr. Liccardo said. “You can only hope that we all collectively learn and better prepare.”
Dr. Irwin Redlener, the director of National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, said emergency officials in New York state and city government were watching Houston to see how the storm affected high-security plants where dangerous chemicals and pathogens are stored.
“We are all questioning if they are secure enough,” he said. “New Yorkers have no problem imagining that any kind of man-made or natural disaster is not out of the question since we have seen both kind of events.”
Alex Padilla, the California secretary of state and a former state senator who helped push through financing for an early-alert statewide system for earthquakes, said that even though this was a different kind of event in a different state, it could only help efforts here to encourage people to prepare.
“It triggers memories of the Bay Area quake or the Northridge quake, he said, adding that Harvey has prompted many to ask, “Are we ready? Are we prepared?”
Adam Nagourney reported from Los Angeles, and Jess Bidgood from Boston. Reporting was contributed by Lizette Alvarez from Miami, Nicholas Corasaniti and Mark Santora from New York, Thomas Fuller from San Francisco, Kirk Johnson from Seattle, Mitch Smith from Chicago and Louis Keene from Los Angeles.
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The tiny Caribbean islands ravaged by Hurricane Irma are in trouble — and begging for help.
Hurricane Jose appears headed for the Irma-ravaged Caribbean islands, as well.
As the worst of Hurricane Irma departed Antigua and Barbuda early Wednesday, Prime Minister Gaston Browne boasted that “no other country in the Caribbean would have been as well prepared as we were.” The problem with this statement, as he later acknowledged, was that Barbuda was left “barely habitable.”
Barbuda sustained damage to about 95 percent of all properties there, Browne told local media after flying over the island. Aerial footage showed homes with entire walls blown out and entire roofs ripped away. Those who lived through it described a night of pure terror.
“I felt like crying,” Browne said after seeing the destruction, “but crying will not help.”
As Irma continues a merciless churn toward the U.S. mainland, those first islanders left in its wake are only beginning to decipher the scope of devastation — or, in some fortunate cases, a surprising paucity thereof.
Barbuda. Anguilla. St. Martin. St. Barthelemy.
These jurisdictions are part of the Leeward Islands, a vulnerable, isolated chain arcing southeast from Puerto Rico. As night fell Wednesday, and people took stock of what's been lost, there was confusion, desperation and worsening fear that another hurricane, Jose, which already has formed in the Atlantic, appears to be coming for them, too.
On Thursday and Friday, it will be others' turn to make sense of the damage wrought by Irma, only to look ahead at what Jose may have in store.
To the west, Irma raked the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, where nearly 1 million people were without electricity Wednesday night. The Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands are next in its path. Closer to Florida's southern tip, the Bahamas remain in danger, and mass evacuations are underway.
The United Nations has said Irma, a historic Category 5 storm, could affect as many as 37 million people.
At 5 a.m. Thursday, when the National Hurricane Center offered its latest update, officials offered this ominous bulletin about Jose:
“... JOSE A LITTLE STRONGER ...”
The looming storm now has sustained wind speeds nearing 90 miles per hour with even stronger gusts. Its potency is forecast to grow over the next 48 hours. “Interests in the Leeward Islands should monitor the progress of Jose. Hurricane and Tropical Storm Watches will likely be
required for portions of these islands later this morning.”
Of Barbuda's 1,400 residents, about 60 percent are homeless, Browne told the Associated Press. The prime minister has vowed to evacuate everyone there to Antigua ahead of Jose's arrival.
To the south, in the French territories of St. Martin and St. Barthelemy, at least eight people have died. Ghastly images, captured on mobile phones and circulated on social media, showed cars and trucks almost completely submerged in the storm surge, and several buildings in ruin.
French President Emmanuel Macron said it's still too soon to determine how many victims there may be. He has dispatched the country's overseas territories minister, Annick Girardin, who told reporters while en route to the region that evacuations may be necessary, the BBC reported.
In Anguilla, part of the British West Indies, the local government is “overwhelmed” and desperate for help, Attorney General John McKendrick told The Washington Post late Wednesday.
Officials were barely able to communicate among one another and with emergency response teams, he said. With most lines down, they were dependent on instant messaging.
It appears at least one person has died in Anguilla, McKendrick said.
“Roads blocked, hospital damaged. Power down. Communications badly impaired. Help needed,” he wrote in one message. In another, McKendrick said, “More people might die without further help, especially as another hurricane threatens us so soon.”
Jose remains deep in the central Atlantic for now, but as it gathered strength Wednesday, forecasters said it's expected to become a dangerous Category 3 hurricane by Friday. It's possible the storm could approach the same islands this weekend.
The United Kingdom's international development secretary, Priti Patel, announced Wednesday that the British navy, along with several Royal Marines and a contingent of military engineers, had been dispatched to the Caribbean with makeshift shelters and water purification systems. While some in England criticized the response, McKendrick told The Post that he's worried they, too, will quickly become overwhelmed by the amount of work that must be done to restore a sense of normalcy.
Elsewhere on Anguilla, some informal reports were less bleak. The Facebook page for Roy's Bayside Grill, for instance, remained active as Irma passed.
Around 7:30 a.m., the page broadcast a brief live video, about a minute of footage of the storm captured from inside an unidentified building. With rain pelting the windows and wind whipping the treetops back and forth, a narrator calmly describes the scene outside. “Can't see very far at all,” he says. “We've got whitecaps on the pool. Water is spilling out. And it's quite a ride. But thought I'd check in and let everyone know we're still good.”
Phone lines to the restaurant appeared to be down by the afternoon, and messages left with the Facebook page's administrator were not immediately returned.
At 1 p.m., a panoramic photo appeared showing several buildings. The decking on one appeared to be ripped apart, and debris was scattered about the beach. One industrial building had a hole in its roof, but by and large everything was still standing.
“We made it through,” the caption reads, “but there is a lot of work to be done.”
JUST IN: Aftermath of #hurricanirma in Tortola -British Virgin Islands pic.twitter.com/D4KQUTJrb5
— Newshub Ireland (@NewshubIreland) September 7, 2017
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Better than a battery? Big energy backs hydrogen power storage.
The secret to switching the global energy system entirely to renewables may lay in the universe’s most abundant substance.
The secret to switching the global energy system entirely to renewables may lay in the universe’s most abundant substance.
Hydrogen has drawn backing from big energy companies from Royal Dutch Shell Plc to Uniper SE in addition to carmakers BMW AG and Audi AG. They’re supporting research into how the element can be used to store energy for weeks or even months beyond what lithium-ion batteries can manage.
While industry’s investment in hydrogen is small at just $2.5 billion over the last decade, the work offers an answer to the elusive question of how electricity could be kept for use in the future. Batteries increasingly are shifting power from day to night, but they tend to go flat after a few weeks. Hydrogen can be kept indefinitely in tanks. That would allow, for example, voltage collected from solar panels in the summer to be used in winter.
“The years 2020 to 2030 will be for hydrogen what the 1990s were for solar and wind,” said Pierre-Etienne Franc and vice president of advanced business and technologies at the French industrial gas maker Air Liquide SA and president of the Hydrogen Council, a trade group promoting the work. “It’s a real strategic shift.”
The technology to use hydrogen as energy storage is well known, although not yet demonstrated in a commercial setting.
Excess power from wind or photovoltaics would drive electrolysis, separating water into its component hydrogen and oxygen elements. The hydrogen captured by that process could, whenever needed, feed natural gas power plants or fuel cells to make electricity. Industrial plants like oil refineries can also use hydrogen for chemical processes.
To date, the energy industry has focused mainly on hydrogen’s potential in fuel cells, which use the element in a chemical reaction to generate electricity. On power-storage, most of the money is going into batteries like the lithium-ion cells widely used in mobile phones and laptop computers. But those tend to lose charge if not topped up and discharged frequently.
Hydrogen storage is attractive because it preserves energy for longer periods. The only real alternative at the moment is pumping water onto a hilltop reservoir, where it can dammed up until grid managers are ready to let it flow down through hydropower turbines. That so-called pumped storage requires the right geography.
If hydrogen could be made to store energy cheaply enough, it would allow utilities to scale back on fossil fuel plants by making it easier for the grid to handle intermittent power flows from wind and solar farms. For example, about $3.4 billion of revenue was lost in China last year because wind farms were forced to remain idle because of congested electric lines.
“If you want to get to 100 percent renewables, hydrogen could play a key role,” said Claire Curry, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “You could have natural gas plants, but that would, of course, not be 100 percent clean.”
The work on hydrogen is in its infancy, but support with big business is growing. The Hydrogen Council was formed at the last World Economic Forum in Davos, with 17 major companies looking for ways to integrate the gas into cleaner energy systems. Its members include Shell, Total SA, Engie SA, Toyota Motor Corp., Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Audi and the Japanese industrial gas supplier Iwatani Corp. General Motors Co. is in the process of joining.
The council is considering a fund for technology demonstration projects and will meet again in November at the next United Nations climate talks in Bonn. A handful of projects are now operating, supported by the German utility Uniper, the European Union and a diverse collection of industrial and energy companies.
Hydrogen Energy Storage Projects:
Curry’s research at BNEF suggests a hydrogen storage system could work in an area like West Texas, where there’s abundant existing energy networks and customers to support transforming solar into the gas. She evaluated a theoretical 1 gigawatt solar farm feeding a unit that makes hydrogen and found that in the right circumstances a hydrogen storage unit could be profitable.
Hydrogen has drawbacks. Government incentives are required to create a market for storage capacity, Curry said. And for now, batteries are the alternative for many of the functions hydrogen would fulfill.
The whole idea of converting power into a gas and then back into power strikes some as convoluted. Erik Fairbairn, chief executive officer of Pod Point Ltd., an electric-car charging network in the U.K., believes that hydrogen’s role should be limited to allow more simple technologies to flourish, particularly when a battery could do the job.
“Generally speaking when you change energy from one form to another, you lose efficiency,” Fairbairn said. “You create hydrogen mainly by electrolyzing water, using electricity to split the hydrogen from oxygen and right off the bat, you lose a quarter of your energy to this.”
Still, the companies involved are optimistic about the technology and are prodding governments to back it.
For a list of hydrogen storage projects and their promoters, click here.
Uniper started its Falkenhagen plant in August 2013 to converts excess wind power into hydrogen, which is fed into a plant that combines it with carbon dioxide to make methane -- natural gas. That gas is transported and stored in the existing pipelines.
“Power to gas is a key technology,” said Eckhardt Ruemmler, a board member at Uniper responsible for innovation. “The use on a large technical scale is currently impeded by insufficient political framework.”
— With assistance by Chisaki Watanabe, Brian Parkin, and Tino Andresen
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FEMA avoids disaster in Houston — so far.
Officials have learned a lot from Katrina — and have a lot to learn from this storm.
THE GULF of Mexico coast is just coming to grips with the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, the remnants of which continued to pelt inland areas Thursday. Tragedy on this scale cannot be fully managed, and the response is only beginning. William “Brock” Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, warned before the hurricane hit that rebuilding would take years. Early damage estimates foresee costs ranging around or above $100 billion. Yet, given the effort so far, Harvey may not become synonymous with government mismanagement, as Katrina did.
Several things that occurred since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 have helped make the beginnings of the response to Harvey seem more orderly.
The George W. Bush administration had to wait for assessments and consultations with local officials before dispatching federal resources. This time, the federal government was able to deploy officials on the ground well before Harvey hit, and coordination with state leaders was closer. Federal military officials and state National Guard forces are working together in ways not seen in 2005.
New technology has been deployed. Drones have been surveying damage. Fast Company reports that electronic flood gauges have fed information to a website through which Houstonians could monitor the state of waterways near them. Snapchat’s mapping feature has helped determine which places needed emergency attention. Facebook has served as a platform to spread information on dangerous conditions — and allowed people to report to their loved ones that they were safe. FEMA has “social listeners” who monitor electronic media and send the information they gather to responders.
Wired points out that Texas upgraded its 911 system after Katrina. Harvey still stressed Houston’s 911, with some callers unable to get through at the busiest times. But it could have been worse. Meanwhile, cellular phone service appears to have held up better during Harvey than during Katrina, in part due to how mobile carriers planned for this hurricane.
President Trump hired a professional emergency manager in Mr. Long. He has projected calm competence throughout the crisis, a welcome contrast to the pathetic spectacle of Bush FEMA director Michael Brown seeming unaware of the misery in New Orleans’s Superdome. Like Mr. Brown, Mr. Long and local officials have a big problem with the well-over-30,000 people displaced from their homes, many of whom are sitting in Houston’s convention and sports centers. How and how quickly these people are moved into more respectable dwellings — their own homes if habitable or motel rooms if not — will be a key measure of how well these leaders are doing their jobs. So will how they handle dicey public-health threats, such as toxic chemical spills, acrid smoke and waterborne disease.
There are more tests ahead, of course. Much of FEMA’s outrageous waste and mismanagement came well after Katrina’s floodwaters subsided. Even as recovery proceeds, the nation must also learn from Harvey as it did from Katrina. Emergency communications could be hardened by getting 911 off outdated wired telephone lines, enabling wireless “mesh” networks that work when cell towers do not and allowing for more detailed emergency alerts. State and local governments should update building codes to make homes and businesses more resilient. And the Trump administration should rethink some of the budget cuts it proposed to agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which would make future dangers harder to identify and respond to.
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