An orphanage in a remote part of Jamaica has seen a marked improvement in their access to electricity thanks to a group of York, Ontario-based volunteers who recently installed a new solar PV panel system at the Beatitudes Home, which is located near the island’s capital city of Kingston.
Prior to this, the orphanage had only one hour of electricity per day provided by a diesel generator. Officers with the York Regional Police Department and representatives of Virtual Engineers, 21 volunteers in all from the Greater Toronto Area, traveled to Jamaica at their own expense to install the 5-kW solar PV system.
The solar-generated electricity is providing light, radio music and refrigeration to preserve food and medical supplies. Toronto-based Eclipsall Energy Corp. manufactured and donated the solar panels that power the system and provided support and training to the officers on the handling and installation of the PV panels.
Off-grid solar systems can provide electricity in the most remote locations and dramatically improve people’s lives by providing power that they would never otherwise have.
The solar system installation at the Beatitudes Home for physically and mentally disabled children is in memory of York Regional Police Constable Davis Ahlowalia. In 2004, he led an initiative to adopt a Missionaries of the Poor orphanage in Kingston, Jamaica. Davis’s efforts created a partnership that assisted in providing much needed food, money and other charitable donations. In 2007, at the age of 28, Davis Ahlowalia lost his life in a motor vehicle collision.
Eclipsall Energy Corp.
www.eclipsall.com
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