Shield City is Kind of Off Grid

Not to brag, but Shield City is powered off solar for day use and generator for nighttime! Yes, in order to stabilize our center for basic daily operations, we use a combination of these alternative energy sources. Nigeria loses power up to a dozen times a day, often for several hours at a time. Several times this year, we've lost power for more than five days. We have a sturdy set of panels fixed to our roof, that do very well with all the sun we get in Kano (which is located in the Sahel region, closer to the Saharan desert).

(Left: The switch that disconnects us from city power to generator power. Center: Our sturdy generator. Right: Types of solar panels used in Nigeria)

Our constant generation of power has another helpful function: during these city-wide outages, our mothers are bring their cell phone chargers and charge up while their child is in play therapy.

We've considered purchasing an air conditioner for our inner chambers, because temperatures in Kano are consistently in the 90s to 100s. And it gets seriously hot inside our building. However, the overall power wattage consumed by an air conditioner would be too much for our regenerative solar panels.

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