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Could Solar-Powered Drones Deliver Electricity to the Developing World?
Distributed energy systems are a good idea for homes that aren't hooked up to the grid. But distributing solar panels to remote areas in the developing world is hard. That's why Mobisol, a German installer, is testing whether drones could do some of the heavy lifting.
- Categories
- Energy
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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This Solar Innovation by a Swedish Artist Uses Surprisingly Simple Technology to Save Lives
Petra Wadström, a Swedish designer and artist now in her 60s, doesn’t have an engineering background. Back in 2005, when she came up with the idea for Solvatten—a piece of equipment that makes contaminated water safe to drink—she also didn’t know much about solar power.
- Categories
- Energy, Health Care, Technology
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Your Cheap Solar Lamp is Garbage
It’s easy to think of “the poor” in two-dimensional, homogenous terms and rattle off assumptions like "They’re poor people, aren’t they happy with anything?" or "Isn’t something better than nothing?" Incorrect. As the charity research organization SolarAid once put it, “The quickest way to fix a problem is the best,” and in most cases, that means quality.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Tags
- Base of the Pyramid, solar
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Uganda’s Kiira Motors Unveils ‘Africa’s First Solar Bus’
A solar-powered bus described by its Ugandan makers as the first in Africa has been driven in public.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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A New Roadmap for Power Africa
An ambitious new road map released last week lays out how Power Africa, the United States government initiative to increase power generation capacity and access to electricity in Africa, will achieve its targets by 2030. The report outlines areas of new emphasis for the initiative, including a greater focus on energy access and on renewables.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Powerhive Is Bringing Clean Energy to the Developing World—With Prepaid Solar
The remote village of Monomoni, Kenya, is too far from cities and too sparsely populated to be part of the national grid. Now, however, it's possible for a family of cow herders or a small business to buy prepaid solar power through a mobile phone.
- Categories
- Energy
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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Weekly Roundup: Acumen’s SolarAid Acquisition, Davos Deja Vu , the Grumpy Gates Critics
This week we explore Acumen's purchase of the SolarAide research arm, ruminate on the Davos script and do a little defending of the Gates Foundation.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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East African Company Moving From Selling Only Solar Energy to ‘Everything’
For the last four years Kenya-based consumer finance company M-KOPA has enabled 300,000 low-income earners in East Africa to acquire home solar energy systems using its pay-as-you-go model.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar