COVID-19 has shone light on the need to electrify rural health facilities. Data gathered indicates
that rural health facilities in West Africa are at a disadvantege in battling COVID-19. Having
access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable modern electricity services improves the quality of
health care delivery everywhere. Health facilities with limited access to sustainable electricity
inevitably struggle with vaccine storage, diagnosis, treatment, and transmission of case reports to
central authorities, rendering them blind and mute.
In 2010, World Bank identified that many health facilities connected with solar PV systems
became inoperative after 3–5 years when proper maintenance and repair services were not
provided. Eleven years after this study, it takes less than two years for solar systems to become
inoperative without proper maintenance. Yet, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates
that one in four health facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa lacks electricity; noting that West Africa
shares similar statistic; and three in four health facilities lack reliable power. Many health
facilities are located in remote off-grid communities. They are characterized by poor surrounding
infrastructure and low electricity demand, making them unattractive to traditional electricity
service providers or even the national grid. The remote locations of these health facilities make it
difficult for grid connection, and thus off-grid renewables offer rapidly deployable, reliable,
cost-effective solutions (IRENA, 2018).
The multiplicity of challenges facing health facility electrification is enormous; nonetheless,
ensuring solutions that prove long-term and sustainable is critical and challenging at the same
time. This talk will explore the case of health facility electrification in Sierra Leone. It will
specifically try to answer these questions; what current practices exist in electrifying health
facilities? What are the challenges? What solutions have been proposed and/or being
implemented? And what sustainability measures have been put in place?

Making the energy transition happen: building momentum in an unequal world