Camel Fridge: A novel, mobile, solar-powered refrigerator.

One of the monumental health projects of our time has to be the effort to bring vaccines into remote, rural regions of the world. Vaccines must be kept cool, and in remote rural regions where it’s too darn hot to begin with, a reliable source of electricity is usually not a feature.

A Finnish company, NAPS Systems, addressed this need in the 1980’s with this mobile camel-solar-powered refrigerator. This version evolved into a more boring Naps Universal Power Pack. The Universal Power Pack comprises 4 50W solar panels, and 2 100 A-hour 12V lead-acid batteries and can power the CFS49IS, a 49-liter vaccine refrigerator. The whole thing weighs about 300kg. And yes, the CFS stands for Camel Fridge Systems.