Solar power: Lighting Pakistan, one village at a time

Hassaan Idrees
Jul 22, 2017 · 4 min read

Story of a Fulbright alum changing lives for the better.

Hassaan Idrees (pictured above) took a selfie with the kids gathered around him after the project. Children were excited to see the lightbulbs allowing them to play and study till later in the evenings.

Hema, an 8 year old girl, is one of five siblings living in the village of Revi ji Dhani, located close to the Mirpurkhas-Umerkot highway, a perennially drought ridden area in Pakistan. Every day, she wakes up before the crack of dawn to fetch water from a hand pump at a distance of 2 miles. It is a winding, nasty route that she has to maneuver in the dark for there are no streetlights, and snakes and wild dogs run amok in the desert bushes. Panting and sweating on her return, she has to get ready to go to a dilapidated public school situated a mile away. Hema has trouble finishing her homework under the grim gaslight at home: it’s inadequate, expensive and dangerous. As her father runs a small store in the village, however, she is one of the fortunate few to actually attend school; the vast majority of children in Revi ji Dhani have to assist their families with herding cows or woodcutting to make ends meet. Hema belongs to an unbelievably impoverished community: more than 46% people in the Umerkot district, out of more than 700,000, live with less than $1.90 a day. Rural female literacy is less than 10% in this district. Access to the grid is limited to the main town and larger villages, and still suffering from daily blackouts. Smaller villages and hamlets have either power outages for as long as 18 hours a day, or not connected to the grid at all. With little or no power, local economy suffers, and life is tough.

The image above is a snapshot of one of the village huts in Revi ji Dhani, Umerkot district of the Sindh province in Pakistan. Poverty levels are high with little economic resources. Food, water, energy, health and education are prized in this village.

Fulbright alumni make positive differences in their communities around the world in areas as diverse and impactful as access to clean water and energy, agriculture and food security, education, health, and women empowerment. Completing my master’s degree in electrical engineering and specializing in power systems from Arizona State University in summer of 2016, I vowed to do my part in solving Pakistan’s perennial energy crisis. Upon return from the U.S., I joined an electric utility in southern Pakistan, where I am currently working as an Assistant Manager in energy efficiency, demand side management, and integration of renewable electrical energy systems. Additionally, I initiated a solar home systems’ project in rural villages of the Sindh province.

Without access to electricity, critical basic services such as clean water, sanitation and education are elusive in Pakistan. The geography and the economy of the Sindh province revolve around the river Indus that flows through its heartland until the river reaches the Arabian Sea. Communities living in Umerkot and Tharparkar districts of Sindh are away from the river, and have arid weather with desert landscapes. To establish a point of contact in this area for small scale yet meaningful development projects, I was able to utilize the 2016 Fulbright Alumni conference in Islamabad to initiate collaboration with a local NGO operating in Sindh for more than 14 years — the Association for Water, Applied Education, and Renewable Energy (AWARE) — working with the local government and aid agencies to solve problems at micro level. By putting together a team of volunteers in Karachi, we conducted site assessment visits to identify where we could use our skills to benefit the underserved communities in a human centered design. This led to the start of a project to deliver access to energy with technical guidance from Dr. Ray Larsen of Stanford University, Dr. Nate Johnson of ASU, and some other patrons from ASU and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Smart Village. By early 2017, survey results were compiled, technical designs were evaluated and a comprehensive plan was shared with the IEEE Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT) committee for approval. Within a few months I received funding, and this summer we are conducting installation of solar home systems that can light up Hema’s home and her friends’ to help them study in the evenings, and make her early morning walks safe from wild animals.

The image above shows us volunteers discussing the issues on access to energy with the community representatives who did not, sadly, include women. Women empowerment is desperately needed and projects like “Empowering Umerkot” enable women to be able to work on their handicrafts in the evening under the solar powered lighting, and sell their merchandise in larger towns.
Hassaan Idrees (left) and Parkash Lohana (right) testing one of the solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in the village. Installation work was done by the villagers themselves, who were enthusiastic to see light in their homes without the use of gaslights and cook stoves.
The image shows a lamp lighting up the inside of a village. Snakebites are common in Revi ji Dhani, and lights will allow the villagers to be wary during night.
Village women in Revi ji Dhani were shy, and after taking their permission, were asked how they thought this would help them. The woman pictured above, Shama, was very grateful for this project, and said it really helped them when cooking during the night, and believed this can help them with sewing clothes and selling — an economic activity which would truly empower these women.

Author’s note:

Here are a few pictures after the successful testing and commissioning of the solution. Here is a video shot during the initial phase of the solution, and a couple of videos after the installations of the complete solution: here and here.

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