Our Crowdfunding Groups
Cal Poly’s Interdisciplinary Project
“Skip the Grid: Installing Solar-Powered Refrigerators in the Navajo Nation
Of the nearly 173,000 residents living within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation, more than a third of the native Diné people do not have access to electricity. To help solve this, a group of interdisciplinary Cal Poly students will be part of the design and installation team bringing solar-powered systems and refrigeration units to the Diné people.
A diverse team of undergraduate students from multiple disciplines – construction management, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, political science, and graphic communications – are gratified to collaborate under the guidance of SOLV Energy, HOA, and Cal Poly faculty to develop this project to create an important and lasting impact in partnership with the Navajo community.
We are delighted to join and learn from those at the forefront of this effort, the Heart of America (HOA), a nonprofit focused on educational equity, and SOLV Energy, the largest solar contractor in the United States. They’ve been tackling these problems of energy and education inequality head-on. Specifically, their work with the Lightmaker’s Project led to their connection to provide electrical support to students of the Navajo community and Cal Poly for virtual learning, and now together as a team to install refrigeration units with the support of a key partner, Dometic USA. They are generously donating all of the refrigerators for our project Skip the Grid!
More About the Project:
The Navajo Nation is a Native American reservation spanning more than 17,000,000 acres of the Four Corners region and it includes parts of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico, an area larger than ten U.S. states.
The essential work of the partners on this project will include analyzing energy demand, designing the solar-powered refrigeration system, installing the system on site, navigating material transportation obstacles, creating user manuals in the native language, practicing solar system installation, providing family education materials, researching government support to scale the impact in the future, and raising awareness of the energy and education inequalities which the Navajo people face.
We encourage you to learn and cherish the Dine’ values in beauty and balance, the key values that we hope to exhibit in our work at the Navajo Nation with this multidisciplinary, community service project. Some of the participating students are grateful to be able to apply this as a complex senior project that prioritizes open-dialogue, rigorous research, testing, installation and cultural training.
We thank you for your support as we create the foundation for future students to continue to improve and build upon our solar-powered refrigeration systems, and to understand the needs and concerns of the local community!
Your donation helps purchase portable tools such as measuring tape, stud finder, clamps, or other small hand tools and screws.
Your donation supports installation tools such as drill bit sets, blades, wire cutters and larger items on our wish list.
Your donation goes toward critically needed items such as power tools and batteries. Since these families do not have access to reliable power when we arrive, items such as compact cordless power tool sets are crucial.
Your help will purchase items like portaband saws that will be used for installation and set up.
Scale up to help us obtain additional power tools and ladders for our entire crew, who will often be distant from each other during installation.
You gift supports additional student travel costs to research and help installation, getting one step closer to providing access to off-grid energy and refrigeration.
This gift will go toward four power tools for installation as well as help fund future research and testing to improve solar powered batteries for long-term use.
