Solar Panel Donation Provides Sustainable Energy for a Burkina Faso Hospital

Most people have heard the classic line, “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” At Realterm, we were able to give this proverb life.

As a global logistics real estate company, Realterm is regularly acquiring and retrofitting properties. We recently purchased a final-mile warehouse in The Netherlands which came equipped with solar panels that were owned and operated by Solar Access, an established green energy supplier in Europe. As part of the purchase agreement, Realterm took over the lease on the panels and the accompanying equipment.

Shortly after purchasing the property we secured a new tenant that required an overhaul of and upgrade to the property for increased functionality. Realterm retained Dutch contractor Van Zoelen for the renovation, which included reconfiguring the building’s layout and removing  86 of the solar panels from the existing roof.

According to industry standards, solar panels are expected to last between 25 and 30 years. In fact, many solar panels installed as early as the 1980s are still generating energy at a sufficient capacity today. Given the long lifespan of solar panels and the complexities that accompany the recycling process of them, it has become more common to reuse panels if they have at least 10 years of useful life left. The panels removed from Realterm’s property still had plenty of life and energy to provide, thus they could be reused. With sustainability at the core of Realterm’s mission, it was important for the company to find a place where the solar panels could continue to be an asset.

Through Van Zoelen, Realterm learned about the Paam Laafi Association, which has a mission of making high-quality medical care accessible to all. They run the Paam Laafi Hospital in Burkina Faso, which needed an independent energy source so that it could provide more consistent care for patients.

New Life

With assistance from Van Zoelen, Realterm gave the solar panels from its property a second life. All 86 solar panels, including the frames and inverters, that were removed from the property in The Netherlands were installed on the roof of Paam Laafi Hospital.

The hospital, located on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, is a relatively impoverished city with a great need for improved healthcare facilities. At the time of donation, the hospital was building a new operating room. The new 86 solar panels will now provide reliable and sustainable energy that will help the hospital to provide steadfast care to the community.

Burkina Faso suffers from a lack of healthcare options, facilities and qualified healthcare workers to meet its population’s growing needs. According to the Burkina Faso Ministry of Health, there is less than one physician per 10,000 people, 3.57 nurses per 10,000 people, and 2.39 midwives per 10,000 women.

The 120-bed Paam Laafi Hospital aims to make medical care accessible to all people that live in the country’s largest city, which has a population of more than 2.4 million people. Prior to the donation, the hospital faced challenges and was unable to afford a sufficient energy source. Local power is extremely expensive and unreliable, and it occasionally goes out for more than 24 hours at a time. A generator to run the hospital in the event of an outage is both large and expensive to fuel and sustain. Furthermore, generators release harmful gases into the environment and are not sustainable or healthy.

Given the sun-drenched terrain of Burkina Faso, solar energy is an extremely cost efficient and sustainable way to provide stable power to the hospital and to maximize unused space on the hospital’s rooftop. Solar energy is one of the cleanest sources of energy and the source of their energy is abundant and, best of all, free.

About the author: Leonie Kierkels is Associate Director Asset Management Europe, Realterm. For more information, visit realterm.com.