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Uganda’s Newest Utility: Pay-as-you-go Solar Power
In Uganda, telecom provider MTN and a company called Fenix are gearing up this year for a nationwide rollout of pre-paid electricity, similar to pre-paid airtime, but using solar kits. Uganda has one of the lowest electrification rates in Africa - a continent where some 600 million people are off the power grid.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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A Crowdfunding Site For High-Impact Solar Projects
Lack of access to financing can keep many otherwise worthy solar energy projects from being built in poor and underserved areas, but a solar crowdfunding site is helping to connect individual investors with solar energy businesses and working to bring affordable solar energy to communities around the world.
- Categories
- Energy
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Can Crowdfunding Help Cleantech Ride the Big Data Wave?
"Big data is a coming wave of 'green gold,'" says Nick Eisenberger of Pure Energy Partners."Information technology will be the most powerful tool to address resource challenges in our lifetime."
- Categories
- Energy
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Financial innovations spur renewable energy investment in global markets
Investment firms, financiers and energy companies around the globe are introducing innovative new funding vehicles aimed at renewable energy investment.
- Categories
- Energy
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8 Defining Milestones in India’s Social Enterprise Landscape
As India celebrates its 67th year of freedom on Thursday (Aug. 15), it seems poignant to pause and reflect on eight milestones that have played an important role in shaping India’s social enterprise landscape and the lessons they teach us.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Free Trials and Payment Plans: Creative financing plans take a bit of risk, but up the reward for clean energy retailers
High prices for renewable prices are in part a result of high transportation costs from the poor road infrastructure and fragmented markets characterized by inefficient and unshared distribution channels. All these factors increase the cost of doing business in the region. What’s needed is creative financing options for consumers and enterprising retailers willing to take on additional risk for additional reward.
- Categories
- Energy
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A Social Entrepreneur’s Inspiration For Solar-Powered Lighting
Solar-powered light bulbs for the poor: A growing number of social enterprises are selling such technology to bottom of the pyramid households in Africa, India and other countries. One of the first to do so, Denver-based Nokero (for No Kerosene) just introduced its next generation of products, as it works to make the company’s management more professional–and able to grow the enterprise even more.A little more background on the issue: Around 1.3 billion of world’s population lacks access to reliable electricity. Most of them use kerosene lamps, which are very very very expensive compared to incandescent lamps, (people spend as much as 30% of their income on kerosene-based fuels, according to Nokero), cause deadly fires (If you live without electricity, you’re seven times more likely to die by fire than someone with electricity, according to Katsaros), and contribute to air pollution. They don’t produce a whole heck of a lot of light, either
- Categories
- Energy
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RBC inks first deal for its Social Finance initiative, investing $500,000 in MaRS Cleantech Fund
MaRS Discovery District today announced that the RBC Generator, the impact investing arm of RBC's Social Finance initiative, has invested $500,000 in the MaRS Cleantech Fund, Canada's most active dedicated early-stage cleantech venture fund. This is the first deal announced through the RBC initiative. Launched in 2012, the MaRS Cleantech Fund aims to provide early-stage funding to companies developing next-generation clean technology breakthroughs with global markets, deep intellectual property and capital-lean business models.
- Categories
- Energy
- Tags
- renewable energy
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