People who live in the developed countries of the world often take their access to potable water for granted, spraying it needlessly over their cars and turf-covered lawns, or flushing gallons of it with abandon every time they visit the bathroom.
The World Health Organization, though, estimates that about 2.2 billion people across the world still struggle every day to access fresh drinking water—particularly in the parched nations of sub-Saharan Africa.
At face value, the situation seems ironic—especially because over two-thirds of the globe's surface is covered in water. Nevertheless, the vast majority of it—over 96 percent—is salt water, which is hardly drinkable.
Now, though, the GivePower Foundation has developed what could be a solution to this growing issue. Since the summer of 2018, the NGO has been operating a solar-powered desalination plant in the country. The Solar Water Farm is situated on the east coast of Kenya along the Indian Ocean in Kiunga's small fishing community. It brings clean, drinkable water to about 35,000 people every day, according to Interesting Engineering.
GivePower started as the nonprofit subsidiary of SolarCity, a solar-panel company co-founded by billionaire Elon Musk back in 2006. SolarCity merged with Tesla ten years later, and GivePower became an independent organization before that.
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The NGO uses desalination systems housed in twenty-foot shipping containers to transform approximately 20,000 gallons (75,000 liters) of saltwater or brackish water into water fit for drinking. These containers are fitted with solar panels, which produce 50 kilowatts of energy stored in high-performance Tesla batteries along with two water pumps that operate around the clock.
That's drastically improved the quality of life for the area and particularly in Kiunga, where 3,500 villagers have had no access to clean water. More specifically, the African country has been stricken by severe drought over the past five years, which led to poor agricultural production and extreme malnutrition, impacting all aspects of Kenyan society.
GivePower claims its installation can provide 20 years of access to clean water at the cost of just $20 per person—bringing not only huge health benefits to the people of the area but breathing life into suffering local economies.
Hayes Barnard, the president of GivePower, hopes that his nonprofit’s Solar Water Farm could lead to a solution for the 844 million people across the world who lack access to clean drinking water—and especially those 300,000 kids who die each year because of waterborne diseases.
For Barnard, this crisis requires solutions rooted in sustainable industrialization—and GivePower’s solar-powered clean energy desalination project is one of those solutions. The NGO has already given more than 2,650 solar-powered energy systems to medical clinics, villages, and schools in 17 countries, and they're also now researching four additional locations where they can install new solar water farms.
Drinking, cooking, or bathing in contaminated water has caused countless health problems for the people of the region, such as deadly diseases like cholera, dysentery, and other waterborne illnesses or parasites that poisoned local communities.
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