ELANGATA UAS, Kenya (AlertNet) – Until recently, Margaret Kipoe struggled to ensure her children received their vaccines.

“It was very difficult to get my children vaccinated because of the distance I had to travel to access the health centre,” said the mother of six. When they did arrive, “the nurses would tell us that there were no vaccines available because of storage problems.”

Now, however, sun is providing the energy to store vaccines and keep them fresh at the rural Iloodokilani health centre, in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

In a room at the centre, a solar-powered vaccine cooler lets out a gentle hum, assuring Kipoe, 30, that her new three-month-old son James will go home protected from hepatitis B and other disease threats.

Off-grid refrigerators have long been used in remote areas of Kenya and other countries. But “previous refrigerators were either using kerosene or gases which were both harmful to the environment and posed a health hazard,” as well as contributing to climate change, said Thomas Mbithi, a biomedical engineer practicing in Nairobi and scientist for Total Hospital Solutions Ltd., which is promoting the solar refrigerator.

The Danish SolarChill technology, tested in Cuba, Indonesia and Senegal, produces 150 to 160 watts of voltage that freeze ice packs inside the refrigerator, that then continue to keep the refrigerator’s contents cold once the sun goes down.

There are no batteries, which can be expensive and sometimes need replacing. As a result, the refrigerator is expected to have a lifespan of about 20 years, Mbithi said.

“SolarChill does not use storage batteries or electricity but is powered by energy absorbed directly from the sun,” he said. The technology is ideal for remote areas, he says, and more than 20 units have now been installed in Kenya’s arid areas, particularly northern Kenya and the Rift Valley.

COLD IN THE HEAT

Catherine Muna, a nurse at the Iloodokilani, said the health centre often received vaccines only monthly from the nearest district hospital, which she said was 30 kilometres said. Storing the vaccines at the correct temperature to protect them has long been a problem in the village, where daytime temperatures can reach 35 degrees Celsius, she said.

“We used energy from gas to power the refrigerator in which we were storing the vaccines,” Muna said. “When the gas ran out, it was hard to get fresh supplies because the health centre has no vehicle and the nearest shopping centre is 60 kilometres away.”

The new refrigerator, however, can hold vaccines at between two and eight degrees Celsius for five days after one initial charge of solar energy. The centre’s unit has a storage capacity of 20 litres, Muna said.

With the new refrigerator, she and other nurses at the centre can attend at least 60 to 100 babies a day, she said.

The centre’s refrigerator was donated through a partnership between the government of Kenya, PATH International, the World Health Organization, the Danish Technology Institute and the United Nations Environmental Programme.

David Njagi is an environmental writer based in Nairobi.