In April 2022, the Enviroearth team carried out an eight-day mission in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to resolve a failure on a solar system powering the local offices of UNFPA, a United Nations agency. This grid-independent hybrid system comprises a 90 kWp solar array, a bank of nearly 400 batteries, and an automatically controlled diesel generator.

The team, made up of one of our electrical engineers, a project manager and our local partner, diagnosed the fault, identifying a damaged battery that was affecting the entire bank, preventing the system from starting up. The faulty battery was removed and the bench rewired. In addition, the solar field, which was covered in dust, was carefully cleaned by our local partner. After a series of no-load and load tests, the system was restarted and is now operating normally.