What is the name of your organization?
Watts4Women.
What is the name of your solution?
Watts4Women.
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Watts4Women provides solar-powered microgrids to rural health clinics, enhancing maternal care with reliable energy, storage, and cooling.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Tanzania
What type of organization is your solution team?
Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
The problem Watts4Women aims to solve is the lack of reliable, sustainable energy in rural health clinics, especially maternal wards, in off-grid communities. In sub-Saharan Africa, over 600 million people live without access to electricity, with many health clinics relying on unreliable and expensive energy sources like diesel generators. This limits access to critical medical services, particularly for women and children, and contributes to high maternal and infant mortality rates. The absence of electricity also hinders essential services like cold storage for vaccines and medications, proper lighting for surgeries, and clean water for sanitation.
Globally, 5.2 billion people lack access to safely managed sanitation, and 2.2 billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water. In rural areas, this challenge is compounded by poor infrastructure and the high cost of traditional energy sources. Watts4Women targets health clinics serving 2,000–10,000 people, with an immediate goal to reach 100 rural health centers in the next 2 years. By providing solar-powered microgrids, Watts4Women will improve health service delivery, reduce maternal mortality, and enhance medical outcomes.
What is your solution?
Watts4Women provides solar-powered microgrids designed specifically for rural health clinics, with a focus on maternal health wards. These microgrids provide a reliable and clean energy source, essential for powering medical equipment, lighting, and refrigeration for vaccines and medications. Our solution includes battery storage to ensure continuous power, solar water heaters for sanitation, and cooling systems for critical medicines.
The technology leverages solar energy, battery storage, and energy-efficient appliances to create a sustainable and reliable energy infrastructure where grid power is unreliable or unavailable. By reducing dependence on fuel-powered generators and providing round-the-clock energy access, we improve health service delivery, reduce maternal mortality, and enhance overall healthcare outcomes in underserved areas.
This solution is particularly impactful for clinics serving populations of 2,000 to 10,000 people, ensuring that essential medical services, particularly maternal care, are not interrupted due to power outages.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Watts4Women serves rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to reliable electricity is limited. Our primary beneficiaries are rural health clinics, especially those with maternal wards, serving populations of 2,000 to 10,000 people. These communities often lack access to a stable energy source, which significantly impacts the quality of healthcare, especially for maternal and neonatal care.
Many clinics in these areas rely on expensive and polluting diesel generators, or have no access to electricity at all, making it difficult to store vaccines, operate medical equipment, or provide adequate lighting for nighttime deliveries. This leads to higher maternal mortality rates, poor health outcomes, and limited healthcare delivery.
Watts4Women addresses these needs by providing solar-powered microgrids, ensuring that these clinics have a constant, reliable energy source. Our solution will enhance the quality of care, reduce mortality, increase the capacity of healthcare facilities, and ultimately improve the health and well-being of thousands of women and children in underserved rural communities.
