UKRAINE'S WAR OF INDEPENDENCE:

Shmotolokha is the son of Ukrainian World War 2 refugees and his wife grew up in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine. He met Heegaard, operations manager for the Footprint Project, in 2019 when they worked together on a solar microgrid project in Colorado. 

To date, the two have mainly worked on projects in the U.S., and never before in Ukraine. Leveraging their contacts network to establish transport routes into the country, and supported by disaster relief nonprofits on the ground, they began by sending LED lighting equipment and headlamps to hospitals, before expanding the program to include portable solar microgrids, which can recharge the LED kit as well as other essential medical and communications equipment. They also sent microgrids to a refugee camp in Moldova, a country bordering Ukraine which suddenly found itself hosting tens of thousands of people fleeing the war.

It's these last items, the solar microgrids, which are being touted as a game-changer in disaster relief settings. Unlike diesel generators, which are traditionally used to provide emergency backup power but which can only produce energy in real time, solar microgrids such as those deployed by Heegaard and Shmotolokha can produce and store energy independently from the main grid without relying on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

Heegaard and Shmotolokha say they have now shipped more than two dozen 2kWh portable solar battery systems to 13 hospitals in cities all over Ukraine. In areas under heavy Russian bombardment, such as the city of Kharkiv, these solar microgrids are helping save lives.

"[The hospitals there] have intermittent power, they're in the middle of operations and the lights are going out," says Shmotolokha.

It's not necessarily the case that these hospitals don't have traditional generators, adds Heegaard. "But if you can't access diesel then that fossil fuel generator becomes a giant, redundant paperweight."

Medical professionals in Ukraine with solar-powered kit. Credit: Footprint Project.

And because a solar microgrid is a clean source of energy, there are a number of other benefits.

"Noise, fumes and localized air pollution -- none of that exists with solar," says Heegaard, who explains that solar microgrids are therefore perfect for refugee camps. "Refugee partners we're working with are dealing with folks who have PTSD from the conflict and trying to sleep next to a really loud [diesel] generator isn't helpful."

In a conflict where power sources may be targeted, a solar microgrid has the additional advantage of being less detectable than a diesel generator, both because it's quieter and because it gives off less heat. It also negates the need to store large amounts of highly flammable fuel.

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