Orosz wins 2012 Energy Globe Award for first solar powered hospital in Lesotho
“Imagine taking some parts from a car, from an air conditioning system, some more parts from a plumber, and you build a machine that is run with heat instead of gasoline. Then you hook it up to a free energy source such as the sun, and what you get is a clean, sustainable, cost-efficient source of hot water, electricity and even cooling.” Since 2005, Matt and his team have been doing exactly that in Lesotho: Building a solar powered plant for a local hospital as a showcase project for other applications. Lesotho has 310 days of sunshine a year – another reason to take advantage of this form of energy. Parts of the power plant are manufactured locally. Affordable solar collectors are combined with a new kind of drive system, thus producing CO2-free power and hot water which presents a special kind of luxury in the cold mountain regions. All of it is 100 per cent renewable. In addition, an energy-based infrastructure is established in this rural area, which is high in demand because only 15 per cent of the country’s population of 1.8 million have access to electricity.
