Background
Al-Mustafa Welfare Society is one of the most reputable non-profit welfare organizations in Pakistan working for the social development and providing relief to low income group since 1983. It is run by a team of highly motivated intellectuals and social workers comprising of Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Business Executives and Representatives of various fields of life. Al-Mustafa’s branches are working all over the country from Kashmir to Karachi. They are providing Health, Education, Public Awareness and Emergency Relief Services. Al-Mustafa is serving thousands of poor and needy people on daily basis through its Medical Centers, Clinics, Schools, Mosques, Madrasahs, Orphanage, Vocational Training Centers and Skill Development Centers all over the country.
Unfortunately, like all the other areas, Al-Mustafa also faces several hours of load shedding. The load shedding badly affects the daily activities, especially the services provided at the medical center are also interrupted. The medical centers provide various services including cataract operation, ultrasound, vaccination to every needy person at very low cost or even for free.
The volunteers working under Sawayra visited Al-Mustafa orphanage on August 3 2017 for load analysis with the aim of installing solar panels at the Korangi branch.
Facility Details
The facility has a surrounding boundary wall. In the school portion, each classroom there had about four fans, four points, two bulbs and two sockets. There were two corridors having seven bulbs and twelve points. The washroom had ten points, four bulbs and one socket. The orphanage hall, had in total eight fans, ten points, four bulbs, six sockets etc. Moreover, a motor of 1 hp and a pump of 2 hp along with a cooler and deep freezer was also installed there.
A summary of the electrical load is summarized:
Al-Mustafa has a generator which is only for the orphanage not for clinic and school.
- During visit this had been mentioned by the workers there that Clinic certainly needs a backup source as there are machines like Nebulizers and Ultra sound machines which require electricity for their operation, patients have to go through the great deal of discomfort and pain during the period of load shedding. The clinic only receives 20 rupees as the total charge for whatever disease they come with which is to be cured in just 20 rupees.
- The load at Orphanage is enough to be catered by generators but renewable energy source is always better from an environmental perspective.
Next Steps
The next steps is to perform an energy audit of the facility, review electrical circuit diagram and determine the scope and cost of the solar installation. As part of the process, internet access for remote monitoring, siting of panels to minimize risk of theft and a room for inverter, batteries and network computer will be determined. Project Planning is happen over late 2017 and early 2018, with go live date of the solar installation in summer 2018, insha Allah. For more details on the project please contact one of the project interns – Areeba Rauf, Kanwal Mansoor, Syed Umaid Ahmed or Wajahat Ali Khan – using the email address orphanage_solar@sawayra.org
