Africa's quiet solar revolution
The continent skipped land lines for mobile phones. Now a new generation of start-ups is trying to bring sun power to rural Africa – and leapfrog the fossil fuel era.
By Lorena Galliot, Contributor JANUARY 25, 2015
But despite their relative prosperity, up until late 2013, the family had no electricity.
“We waited 10 years for them to turn the power on – 10 years and nothing,” says Noah.
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Then, one afternoon, the Noahs had an unexpected knock on the door. An agent for a new electrical company called M-POWER said that, for a sign-up fee of only 10,000 shillings ($6), he could install a fully functioning solar home system in their house – enough to power several LED lights and a radio. The payoff was immediate. While Noah used to spend $18 a month on kerosene, she now pays a monthly average of $11 for her solar lighting, and she no longer has to go into town to charge her cellphone. The person most affected, though, may be her 2-year-old daughter, Emilia, who is afraid of the dark.
“She would cry every night – every single night,” says Noah. “It was a struggle to put her to sleep.” Now, with a new light above her bed, “it makes a huge difference,” she says.
The changes taking place under the Noahs’ roof are emblematic of a quiet revolution sweeping across much of rural Africa and the developing world.
Until recently, the lack of electricity in many poor areas was seen as something of an inevitable fact of life. Building power grids across long distances to reach remote communities is slow and costly, and when the people in those communities are subsistence farmers living on less than $2 a day, the returns often fail to justify the massive investment.
Now, however, a new solar energy movement is bringing kilowatts to previously unlit areas of Africa – and changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The idea behind the latest effort isn’t to tap the power of the sun to electrify every appliance in a household. Instead, it is to install a small solar panel not much bigger than an iPad to power a few lights, a cellphone charger, and other basic necessities that can still significantly alter people’s lives.
Going smaller better fits the budgets of the rural poor. People use the money they normally would spend on kerosene to finance their solar systems, allowing them to pay in small, affordable installments and not rely on government help. The concept is called pay-as-you-go solar.
Many see it as helping to overcome the problems that have plagued previous solar “revolutions” in Africa. Richard Hosier, a senior analyst at the World Bank, likes to tell the story of his first encounter with solar panels in Africa.
“It was in a village in Kenya, in 1981, during the Carter administration,” he recalls. “There were solar panels all right – cut into little bits to make necklaces for the women.”
African villages, Mr. Hosier says, are littered with failed solar projects donated by well-meaning government agencies or nongovernmental organizations that installed the technology but couldn’t afford to follow up with maintenance or battery replacements.
While some remain skeptical of the new approach, many believe the scale of the current movement, coupled with the involvement of local entrepreneurs and the changing economics of solar power, will make it different this time around. Some observers are even asking, Will rural Africa leapfrog the carbon energy age altogether and go directly to a solar-powered future?
* * *
No one doubts the need to bring kilowattsto remote areas of the developing world. According to the International Energy Agency, more than 1.3 billion people – one-sixth of the world’s population – lack access to modern energy services. In Tanzania, 81 percent of the population live without electricity.
Instead, many of these people rely on candles, battery lamps, and CO2 -emitting kerosene lanterns and diesel generators to light their homes. This can be expensive. Kerosene and diesel, the two main fuels available to the poorest of the poor, are among the costliest for consumers. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that Africans spend between $12 billion and $17 billion a year on fuel-based lighting. In Asia, people spend $9 billion to $13 billion.
These fuels are also dirty. Burning kerosene in African homes and small businesses causes an estimated 30 million to 50 million tons of CO2emissions annually, according to a 2010 study commissioned by the World Bank. Globally, kerosene use releases 190 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year – an amount greater than the emissions of Australia and Britain combined. Replacing all of the world’s kerosene lamps with clean energy sources would have the same environmental impact as taking 30 million cars off the road, the study noted.
Underlying this welter of statistics is the main reason that advocates think the moment is propitious for a small solar revolution in Africa – improving economics. The Global Off-Grid Lighting Association, a nonprofit group based in the Netherlands, estimates that an African household living on $2 a day can save as much as 86 percent of its expenses for kerosene and mobile-phone charging by switching to solar.
Many residents of Tanzania who have installed solar panels have already felt some of these effects on their wallets, as well as in other ways. In one village, a resident describes how he’d stopped feeling the throbbing pain behind his eyes that came from working evenings in dim light.
The continent skipped land lines for mobile phones. Now a new generation of start-ups is trying to bring sun power to rural Africa – and leapfrog the fossil fuel era.
By Lorena Galliot, Contributor JANUARY 25, 2015
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Courtesy of Mathieu Young/Off-Grid Electric
View Caption
But despite their relative prosperity, up until late 2013, the family had no electricity.
“We waited 10 years for them to turn the power on – 10 years and nothing,” says Noah.
Recommended: Think you know energy? Take our quiz.
Then, one afternoon, the Noahs had an unexpected knock on the door. An agent for a new electrical company called M-POWER said that, for a sign-up fee of only 10,000 shillings ($6), he could install a fully functioning solar home system in their house – enough to power several LED lights and a radio. The payoff was immediate. While Noah used to spend $18 a month on kerosene, she now pays a monthly average of $11 for her solar lighting, and she no longer has to go into town to charge her cellphone. The person most affected, though, may be her 2-year-old daughter, Emilia, who is afraid of the dark.
“She would cry every night – every single night,” says Noah. “It was a struggle to put her to sleep.” Now, with a new light above her bed, “it makes a huge difference,” she says.
The changes taking place under the Noahs’ roof are emblematic of a quiet revolution sweeping across much of rural Africa and the developing world.
Until recently, the lack of electricity in many poor areas was seen as something of an inevitable fact of life. Building power grids across long distances to reach remote communities is slow and costly, and when the people in those communities are subsistence farmers living on less than $2 a day, the returns often fail to justify the massive investment.
Now, however, a new solar energy movement is bringing kilowatts to previously unlit areas of Africa – and changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The idea behind the latest effort isn’t to tap the power of the sun to electrify every appliance in a household. Instead, it is to install a small solar panel not much bigger than an iPad to power a few lights, a cellphone charger, and other basic necessities that can still significantly alter people’s lives.
Going smaller better fits the budgets of the rural poor. People use the money they normally would spend on kerosene to finance their solar systems, allowing them to pay in small, affordable installments and not rely on government help. The concept is called pay-as-you-go solar.
Many see it as helping to overcome the problems that have plagued previous solar “revolutions” in Africa. Richard Hosier, a senior analyst at the World Bank, likes to tell the story of his first encounter with solar panels in Africa.
“It was in a village in Kenya, in 1981, during the Carter administration,” he recalls. “There were solar panels all right – cut into little bits to make necklaces for the women.”
African villages, Mr. Hosier says, are littered with failed solar projects donated by well-meaning government agencies or nongovernmental organizations that installed the technology but couldn’t afford to follow up with maintenance or battery replacements.
While some remain skeptical of the new approach, many believe the scale of the current movement, coupled with the involvement of local entrepreneurs and the changing economics of solar power, will make it different this time around. Some observers are even asking, Will rural Africa leapfrog the carbon energy age altogether and go directly to a solar-powered future?
* * *
No one doubts the need to bring kilowattsto remote areas of the developing world. According to the International Energy Agency, more than 1.3 billion people – one-sixth of the world’s population – lack access to modern energy services. In Tanzania, 81 percent of the population live without electricity.
Instead, many of these people rely on candles, battery lamps, and CO2 -emitting kerosene lanterns and diesel generators to light their homes. This can be expensive. Kerosene and diesel, the two main fuels available to the poorest of the poor, are among the costliest for consumers. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that Africans spend between $12 billion and $17 billion a year on fuel-based lighting. In Asia, people spend $9 billion to $13 billion.
These fuels are also dirty. Burning kerosene in African homes and small businesses causes an estimated 30 million to 50 million tons of CO2emissions annually, according to a 2010 study commissioned by the World Bank. Globally, kerosene use releases 190 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year – an amount greater than the emissions of Australia and Britain combined. Replacing all of the world’s kerosene lamps with clean energy sources would have the same environmental impact as taking 30 million cars off the road, the study noted.
Underlying this welter of statistics is the main reason that advocates think the moment is propitious for a small solar revolution in Africa – improving economics. The Global Off-Grid Lighting Association, a nonprofit group based in the Netherlands, estimates that an African household living on $2 a day can save as much as 86 percent of its expenses for kerosene and mobile-phone charging by switching to solar.
Many residents of Tanzania who have installed solar panels have already felt some of these effects on their wallets, as well as in other ways. In one village, a resident describes how he’d stopped feeling the throbbing pain behind his eyes that came from working evenings in dim light.
