Eco Powered Cabinets (EPC) provides solar-powered cabinets for storing medicine in remote locations such as beaches or mountains.
The cabinets are made with lifetime-grade steel to withstand all weather conditions and they “never ever rust,” says their inventor, Darren Forde.
For him, safely storing crucial medications such as aspirin and EpiPens in hard-to-reach places was a key motivator in creating the cabinets, whose separate compartments keep medicines at either high or low temperatures.
Heart defibrillators, for example, are stored in the higher-temperature compartment, whereas aspirin, which needs to be kept at below 25 degrees, goes in the cooler compartment.
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The HSE has come on-board with Eco Powered Cabinets’ innovation, so if a person calls the emergency services from a remote location they can be directed to the nearest cabinet and given the necessary codes to unlock it.
After EPC cabinets containing defibrillators were installed on Crough Patrick in Co Mayo the business was awarded a €15,000 bursary on The Late Late Show, and was a .IE 2023 award winner for sustainability.
Cabinets are also being installed in coastal and river locations in Ireland, where they are fitted with relevant water safety gear, along with the medical equipment, while two cabinets have recently been placed in remote locations in Australia.
