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Announcing NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2025: Vote for Your Favorites by Jan. 4
NextBillion’s “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest has been an annual tradition since 2012. As we do each December, we’ve highlighted 12 of our most-read articles from the past year: You can find links to them in this article, or on the homepage below. We invite you to read them and vote for the ones that influenced your thinking the most. You can vote up to once per hour between today (Dec. 19) and 11:59 pm EST on Jan. 4. We thank you for your support and engagement over these past 20 years, and we wish you a happy and prosperous 2026.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Finance, Investing, Technology, Telecommunications, Transportation
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African Development Bank Backs Hyphen with $10 Million Green Hydrogen Project in Namibia
The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) will provide the loan to support front-end engineering design studies for solar and wind generation, battery energy storage systems, electrolyser capacity and desalination infrastructure.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Miller Center Capital Funds E-Hands Energy to Expand Rural Solar Access in India
Founded in 2009, E-Hands Energy delivers solar and hybrid systems that replace costly diesel generators and unreliable grid power in underserved regions.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Solar-Powered Cold Storage Empowers Smallholder Farmers in India
In Andhra Pradesh and beyond, farmers are adopting solar-powered cold storage systems to help prevent post-harvest losses, reduce transportation costs through on-site storage, and improve incomes.
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- Agriculture
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Financing Off-Grid Solar: A Pioneering Provider in Honduras Shows the Impact of Diversified Funding
Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and many of its most remote regions remain unserved by the electricity grid. Richenda Van Leeuwen at Hummingbird Green Solutions and Richard Stuebi and Jesse Colman at Boston University explore how Soluz Honduras is bringing freezers and other solar products to these markets by leveraging a variety of different financing models — an approach that shows how diversified funding can enable businesses to serve even the hardest-to-reach areas and the poorest of customers.
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Pay-As-You-Go Solar Kit Sales Surge 54% in Sub-Saharan Africa in H1 2025
The report shows that PAYGo sales, where customers purchase solar kits in installments, surpassed cash sales for the first time since 2018.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Pacific Nations Plan to Go From Spending up to 25% of GDP on Fossil Fuels to Running on 100% Renewables
Leaders will formally release a renewable roadmap next week at the COP30 climate conference in Brazil.
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- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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From Energy Access to Economic Empowerment: Workable Models for Financing a Just Transition in Emerging Markets
Today 2.1 billion people live without clean cooking fuels and technologies, and over 660 million people lack electricity access. Yet as Anthony Osijo at Bboxx points out, as global conversations largely focus on decarbonizing energy resources to combat climate change, these millions of households still cannot access essential products and services the rest of the world takes for granted. He argues that emerging markets can't simply be left in the dark because their kerosene lamps and diesel generators aren’t environmentally viable, especially if they lack access to suitable alternatives. He explores ways to finance and deliver a just climate transition — while also eradicating energy poverty.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
