Kili island in Marshalls benefits from solar plant
The Marshall Islands island of Kili is benefiting from a new solar and wind-powered water desalination plant.
Transcript
The Marshall Islands island of Kili is benefiting from a new solar and wind-powered water desalination plant.
In the past, the island's 1,200 residents not only suffered from drought, but also from polluted ground water, which had to be boiled before drinking.
The Spectra reverse osmosis desalination system converts sea water into over 5600 gallons per day of clean drinking water.
Michael Anderson of US company Spectra Watermakers told Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor how the project started.
MICHAEL ANDERSON: Our best and most active distributors in dealing with the disaster relief and community development in the South Pacific is Tom Vance of Moana Marine LLC. He's been instrumental in working with USAID and different relief organisations in bring different technologies to bare and different sources of fresh water to island communities that are really suffering from the drought conditions down there.
MOERA TUILAEPA-TAYLOR: So the locals who will be using machine won't have to rely on fuel.
MA: Absolutely, the system that was installed on Kili island is completely off the grid and works on a combination of solar panels on the roof that help maintain the charge in a battery bank, and then there's also a wind turban to help the system so it's virtually free standing, self sufficient and requires no external power source.
MTT: I know in the past in the Marshall Islands there have been problems with maintaining such machines. It is relatively easy to maintain.
MA: They are relatively easy, we have actually had some good success and a again the Marshall Islands is a great example, we have a system that is on Utrik atoll, where the locals have had the system installed there since 2010, and they've been able to completely manage the maintenance of the system completely over the last four years independently, so it's relatively simple technology, so anyone that could do a minor repair on a small gasoline engine, like a lawnmower or something, could fix the water maker.
MTT: The benefit in the long term will just be amazing, it really does secure their water future.
MA: Well, it secures their water and what we are finding in a lot of these installations is that they are actually starting to use the water for a little agriculture as, so they are able to do consistently grow vegetables without the threat of losing their crop because they can't afford water as the season progresses, so it helps them all around. And the other real benefit of it is that the water that comes from a reverse osmosis plant is very safe there's no bacteria, pathogens or basically anything that can hurt you or make you sick.
Utrik atoll, over 643 kilometres from Kili, has had a Spectra solar and wind-powered water desalination plant there since 2010.
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