Geneva, Switzerland, September 26, 2023 - Gloria María Calcaño, located in the northeastern town of Sanchez, the Dominican Republic, is a local polytechnic school with 326 students and 21 teachers. The remote location and the extremely unstable power supply once put the school in a difficult situation. The whole campus has 8 classrooms, 6 laboratories, 1 office, 1 canteen and 1 multi-function classroom. Frequent power failures affect more than 51% of the students' study time, and a large number of teaching activities and experiments are often interrupted due to the insufficient electricity or unstable power supply.
"In order to address the problem of insufficient electricity in the school, promote the technological advancement of education equipment and optimize the quality of teaching, we donated 5.5 kW PV modules to this school in the Dominican Republic. After the PV system is installed, the school's laboratories will be able to generate their own electricity. In addition, the PV system can continuously supply power to the energy storage system when the conventional power supply is insufficient. Such donations have greatly improved the campus infrastructure, leading to a comprehensive improvement and optimization of the teaching quality of schools."
This is the address made by Dennis She, Vice President of LONGi at the WTO Public Forum 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland. During the event, experts from various industries had a passionate discussion on the topic of "how trade and the WTO can help create a greener and more sustainable future". As a participant representing the clean energy industry, LONGi's value proposition of "energy equity" attracted wide attention from all sectors.
He said that the existing imbalance in global economic development has led to significant disparities in per capita energy consumption across countries, with approximately 80% of the world's energy consumed by the top 20% of economies. Energy poverty directly hinders local economic development and the improvement of people's quality of life, including education.
It is reported that some schools in underdeveloped or remote areas are often unable to carry out normal education and teaching activities due to power shortage, which also inhibits progress towards achieving global educational equity to a certain extent. Furthermore, in the context of global carbon reduction and energy transition, vigorously promoting the widespread use of clean energy and improving education for the next generation is not only an emotional action guided by morality, but also an imperative action prompted by a sense of urgency.
Dennis She believes that to address the challenges arising from global disparities in energy consumption and the unfair distribution of energy sources, supply of clean energy, with PV as the main force, will become the best choice for promoting global coordinated development. Energy equity lies in the provision of clean, affordable and non-discriminatory energy services for all. Solar energy is more widely and abundantly distributed in the world than traditional fossil fuels, and it is more conducive to underdeveloped countries. With the continuous development of PV technology, the LCOE of PV power drops rapidly. The large-scale development of renewable energy, particularly PV power, can improve energy autonomy on the one hand, enhance global synergy on the other hand, and thus reduce many impacts brought about by the energy crisis.
As a world-leading green energy technology company, LONGi has always been committed to harnessing the collective efforts of multiple parties to reduce poverty with PV technology, to promote high-quality education in more energy-starved areas, and to light up the sky of every child with sunshine.
In addition to the Dominican Republic, in recent years, LONGi has also donated PV modules to schools in economically underdeveloped areas such as Mardan, Pakistan and Malawi, Africa, where power resources are scarce. These goodwill actions have greatly improved the infrastructure conditions of the campuses, and at the same time, planted a seed of sunshine in children's hearts.
At this moment, LONGi's green and public welfare actions continue to take place all over the world, and the seeds of "sunshine" will take root in the hearts of more children in power-shortage areas around the world. It is believed that in the near future, not only power-starved campuses, but also other residential areas, hospitals, farms, and trade organizations around the world that are suffering from energy shortages will become greener and more prosperous due to large-scale application of PV.
About LONGi
Founded in 2000, LONGi is committed to being the world’s leading solar technology company, focusing on customer-driven value creation for full scenario energy transformation.
Under its mission of 'making the best of solar energy to build a green world', LONGi has dedicated itself to technology innovation and established five business sectors, covering mono silicon wafers cells and modules, commercial & industrial distributed solar solutions, green energy solutions and hydrogen equipment. The company has honed its capabilities to provide green energy and has more recently, also embraced green hydrogen products and solutions to support global zero carbon development. www.longi.com