Mobile Solar to the Rescue - You Can Help!

Over a month after Super Storm Sandy, there are still parts of the East Coast that are without power. Luckily, a mobile, solar- powered generator, the Mojave-3, has been assisting rescue efforts in some of the hardest hit areas in the Rockaways, NY and Sandy Hook, NJ. The mobile solar array needs no hook up to the grid, can generate 4 kW with 100kW battery capacity and a back-up diesel-powered generator. So far it has provided electricity for a Greenpeace hot food kitchen, a medical clinic, a ranger station, and a charging station for cellphones, flashlights, and other critical equipment.

Project ME4, a member organization of the Local Clean Energy Alliance, whose mission is developing mobile energy for emergency, education and enterprise, has started a crowd-sourcing campaign at Indiegogo to raise funds to keep the Mojave-3 unit operating. If enough funds are collected, they will ba able to add a second solar-powered unit to the relief efforts.

The solar-powered Mojave-3 offers many advantages over diesel-powered emergency generators. In three weeks of operation in the post-Sandy rescue efforts it has used only a half tank of fuel, it makes no noise and emits no pollution. It has proven to be very rugged, surviving storm-devastated roads, mud, rain and snow. It is easy enough to operate that people with no experience have been able to set it up, run it, pack it up and move it on to the next site where it is needed.

The unit has won praise from relief workers, people in the affected neighborhoods, and garnered the interest of the New York Transit Authority.

You can contribute toward this clean energy relief effort by making a donation here.