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Energy advice
Bringing solar technology to rural Africa
“Few Africans in rural areas have access to electricity. Connecting them to national grids will be slow and expensive. Yet Lilliputian windmills, water mills, solar panels and biomass furnaces could have a big collective impact. The cost of lighting a shack takes 10% of income in the poorest households and the kerosene lamps are highly polluting.” - The Economist, “The Dark Continent,” 8.16.07
One strategy for bringing solar technology to rural African villages involves charity. It goes something like this: a nongovernmental organization (NGO or nonprofit) raises money to buy the technology and then gives it to the village. Or a for-profit company donates the equipment as part of its charitable arm.
Another strategy involves simply selling the technology, fully assembled, to the village at a price that’s affordable. The profits, however small, go back to the company, typically a company located thousands of miles away.
Green Energies is creating a third strategy: training villagers to establish micro-factories where they build and sell their own Taa Boras (solar lights) and other solar services.
Everyone wins
Green Energies provides, at cost, a manufacturing toolkit (called GEM) and teaches a small corps of villagers how to use the toolkit to construct the lights. In turn, it helps the village launch a legally incorporated solar micro-factory. Finally, Green Energies acts as an initial broker for supplies until the enterprise produces enough lights and revenues to obtain supplies on their own (or as a cooperative with other nearby solar micro-factories).
It’s a win-win for the village and for its residents.
The village is able to grow a small, sustainable local enterprise with the economic benefits it brings. Villagers are able to purchase an affordable, renewable and non-polluting light source to replace their kerosene lanterns.
The promise is real
In places where “making a living” means subsisting off a small plot of maize and a handful of livestock, a micro-factory holds enormous promise. And
while the initial outlay for a Taa Bora is more than a several month’s supply of kerosene, it quickly repays the investment, delivering up to 75 hours of efficient light before needing recharging from its solar “power pack.”
It’s also health giving. With upper respiratory infections one of the leading causes of illness, villagers can eliminate the air pollution that comes with breathing kerosene fumes in cramped living quarters.
To date, Green Energies has established a lead solar micro-factory in the Tanzanian village of Kambi ya Simba. Already, the Kambi ya Simba Solar Light Centre has begun reaching out to neighboring villages that want to establish their own solar enterprises.
We hope this is just the beginning.
If you are an NGO or entrepreneur in East Africa interested in starting your own manufacturing solar light business, please email us.
Click below for slideshows showing Green Energies in action in Tanzania:
“In the developed world, energy and electricity flow like water. Here, they are precious. Our eyes and lives are accustomed to darkness.”
- Jacob Dallan, age 65,
Kambi ya Simba, Tanzania
Did you know?
“Seen from space, Africa at night is unlit—as dark as all-but empty Siberia. With nearly 1 billion people, Africa accounts for over a sixth of the world's population, but generates only 4% of global electricity.”
“The ‘energy poor” in Africa spend about $17 billion a year on fuel-based lighting sources, such as kerosene lamps, that are costly, inefficient, and provide poor quality light while polluting and posing fire hazards.”
For more facts, see
www.lightingafrica.org