Solar for Igunga

With Solar for Igunga, the non-profit organization Bollé Bollé aims to install and maintain a sustainable and reliable power supply. The region faces power outages almost daily, sometimes lasting a few hours, other times several days, which has a major impact on education, safety, and medical care.

By installing solar panels and equipping buildings with energy-efficient LED lighting and solar-powered outlets, the project seeks to drastically reduce dependence on an unstable electricity grid.

Why this project is necessary

In rural areas of Tanzania, power supplies fail regularly. This leads to significant problems:

Schools
Studying in the evening is difficult without reliable lighting. Students currently often use flashlights with poor-quality batteries that drain quickly and cannot be recycled.
Hospital
During surgeries, childbirth, or other urgent treatments, power outages can be life-threatening. A stable energy supply is crucial for operating rooms, maternity wards, labs, and the day clinic.

At the same time, solar radiation below the equator is ideal, making solar energy a particularly cost-effective and sustainable solution.

Technical approach

We prepared a detailed study for each sub-project. The installation consists of:

solar panels and charger-inverters
a large battery bank, necessary because stored energy must be available in the evening or during power outages
replacement of existing fluorescent tubes with high-quality LED lighting with a very long lifespan (up to 100,000 hours)

Since high-quality solar equipment is difficult to obtain in Tanzania, we purchased everything in Belgium. The materials were subsequently shipped by container via the port of Dar es Salaam to Igunga.

Planning and execution

The technical studies were completed in the autumn of 2017.
The equipment was purchased in early 2018; the first container departed on March 25, 2018.
A second container left Antwerp on May 20, 2019, and arrived in Mwanzugi in July 2019.
In September 2023, another container departed with solar equipment for the Mpinda Boys school.

The rollout is taking place in phases: