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Solar startup ARED empowers Rwandans with “business in a box”
Rwandan hardware-as-a-service company ARED is empowering local people with a “business in a box” solar kiosk platform that enables them to start their own businesses by charging phones and selling virtual top-ups.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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D.light raises another $10.5 million to grow its solar-powered products for off-grid communities
D.light, a for-profit social enterprise that makes solar-powered products for “off-grid” communities, has raised another $10.5 million in funding, taking its total financing to more than $40 million over the past quarter.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- solar, venture capital
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Social Business Roundup: Building Our Immunity to Anti-Vaxxers, Solar Loans With a Side of Health, and SRI Goes Robo
There’s a crisis of trust in the world, some of it well earned – and some, like skepticism about vaccines, completely unwarranted. We cover an alarming uptick in the anti-vax movement's profile, an effort to pair solar loans with health care in Ghana, and the emergence of "robo-SRI" in this news roundup.
- Categories
- Energy, Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing, solar, vaccines
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Zimbabwe Off-Grid Solar Start-up Lands Kiva Direct to Social Enterprise Loan
Off-grid solar start-ups are cropping up across sub-Saharan Africa, conveying the advantages and benefits of reliable, affordable, safe and environmentally friendly electrical power to local communities at an unprecedented rate. It’s not the sort of “big” business that makes major business news headlines, but Africa’s solar start-ups are having an outsized, positive impact and proving that a little bit can go a long way.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- solar
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East Africa’s ‘largest’ solar plant now in operation
What is claimed to be East Africa’s largest solar offering is now online in the form of the 10MW PV plant in Soroti, Uganda. Located on just over 13 hectares of land and comprised of 32,680 modules, the facility is also the country’s first grid-connected plant and will provide enough clean energy to power 40,000 homes.
- Categories
- Energy, Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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Africa Finds Power Off the Grid
But recently those in areas without electricity are taking advantage of an alternative to traditional electric hookups that could help solve Africa’s power problem: off-grid solar home systems, which electrify houses with a battery-connected rooftop panel.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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Cold Hub introduces solar-powered storage facility to empower Nigerian entrepreneurs
To ensure a greater part of the country’s farm yield does not get wasted due to challenges emanating from either erratic power supply or storage facilities reliant on power, Nigerian Cold Hub company has developed a solar-powered food storage design, Cold Hub, to empower small, medium and large scale farmers.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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Taste of solar power builds appetite for more in Kenya, survey finds
Fuel-seller Nancy Kaisa has for years used solar power to light her premises at the Entasopia shopping center in Kajiado, in southern Kenya. But recently she’s started using energy from a solar mini-grid system to operate her fuel pumps and meet her other energy needs, ditching her diesel generator.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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