A Powerful Impact
It was a sight Faruq Vishram, P.Eng., will never forget.
Four years ago, on his last night in Bamyan, Afghanistan, he took a drive to see how the lights were working at the city’s new hospital, where he had just spent 10 days overseeing the installation of a 1,653-panel solar power plant.
The project’s aim: to help reduce the hospital’s dependency on expensive and unreliable diesel-generated electricity, while at the same time lowering its carbon footprint.
“The whole street outside the building was lit up,” recalls Vishram, “and it was covered with kids playing soccer.”
In remote, off-grid Bamyan—where most streets are pitch dark after sundown—it was a rare sight, indeed.