Virginia-based Sigora Solar has founded Sigora Haiti to develop solar- and wind-based microgrids. Sigora's CEO Andy Bindea says he wants the venture to bring power to 2.5 million people in the country by 2025.
The company estimates that it needs to raise an additional $1.3 million from investors to fund its $2 million pilot project in Mole Saint-Nicolas, a municipality on the country's northwest coast. This project will bring electctricity to 5,000 residents, with an additional 25,000 served in the second phase.
Sigora Haiti aims to provide 3.2 MW of electricity to 136,000 people by 2017. By year nine, Bindea envisions generating 116.0 MW of electricity for nearly 2 million people.
Since opening an office in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in March, Sigora Haiti has hired five full-time Haitian employees, acquired 2.5 acres of land for photovoltaic panels and leased 195 acres for wind generation. The company has also signed a 50-year power supplier contract with Mole Saint-Nicolas.
The company has also developed its Sigora Meter prepaid energy-metering technology that offers demand control, as well as community-wide emergency alert and energy monitoring.
‘Haiti's energy needs are simply unmet, and the statistics are startling,’ Bindea says. ‘Seventy-five percent of the population is not on the power grid. Fifty percent of utility energy is lost to theft. The energy consumed is largely fossil fuel. Yet, despite what appears to be a dire scenario, the country has abundant energy resources in the form of solar and wind power, and we plan to harness them.’
