Provide electricity to 500 students in Belize

Dear Supporters and Friends! At my site visit last month, our partners, Solar Energy Solutions Belize, installed the final group of panels to complete Phase 1 of our New Solar Expansion Project at Holy Cross. With the purchase and installation of ~35 new panels and related infrastructure, we are truly grateful for your amazing support in making this finally come to fruition!! 

The egauges show that at peak demand we have improved from about 20% pre-project to about 75% post-project in terms of production offset, which is huge (image shown). This is true for each of our two systems -- one that supports the office, computer learning lab, and library complex, and the other that supports our kitchen, cafeteria, and classroom side of the school grounds.

We are still to address the major new multipurpose building as well as add to the existing Phase 1 build-out so that we can reach 100% offset at peak production... and to reach this goal we will need a Phase 2.

As a reminder, even though we can reach 75-80% at peak demand now, we do not have a battery backup that can capture overproduction for either nocturnal use or doing cloudy periods, and as the cost of such continues to decline we will be looking inot this option as a possible component of Phase 2 (or beyond). 

I will be updating our "need to raise" amount for this project as we reflect also having completed our fundraising, but, of course, we will need more as Phase 2 gets rolling -- and more on that to come.

Enjoy these photos of the volunteer team, installation, and egauge "results" and be proud that you are contributing to a project that not only signifcantly reduces the cost of keeping the doors open for our 500 students and faculty, but also helps in fighting the battle against human-induced global climate warming. 

With all great thanks! 

John