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‘The potential is big,’ says green energy entrepreneur
Socially and environmentally conscious entrepreneur Mshinwa Edith Banzi is the founder of Illumination East Africa (iEA), a Tanzanian-based company that offers affordable solar chargeable LED lamps to predominantly low income earners. These lights have a battery life of between 18-24 months and batteries can be replaced thereafter.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- solar
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Solar lighting: Lighting the way
Energy technology: Cheaper and better solar-powered electric lights promise to do away with kerosene-fuelled lanterns
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Technology
- Tags
- poverty alleviation, solar
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SolarKiosk: Mobile Modular Power for Really Remote Areas
For those who’ve grown up constantly plugged into the power grid, it’s almost impossible to think of life without an endless supply of outlets, power cords, and technology. But for an estimated 1.5 billion people around the world, power—from cutting and burning firewood to lighting kerosene lamps, paraffin, and candles—doesn't come easy.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Tags
- Base of the Pyramid, solar
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Rwanda to develop off-grid lighting
LAGOS, Nigeria, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- Approximately 85 percent of Rwanda's population has no access to the electricity grid, leading energy officials to seek "off-grid" solutions.GVEP International, a charity that battles poverty and climate change by promoting access to modern and renewable energy sources, has produced a report outlining investment possibilities in Rwanda's off-grid electrical sector, which includes solar lanterns and solar photovoltaic systems.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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Power to More People
Africa may be about to get a whole lot more power.For years, nonprofits have worked to make lighting available and affordable to Africans who aren't connected to a power grid. But they've managed to help only a tiny percentage of that population, mainly by selling them inexpensive kerosene lamps.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- solar
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Low-Cost Solar Brightens Lives in the Developing World
A decade ago, Katherine Lucey oversaw a heavily subsidized $1,500 solar-light installation in the rural district of Mpigi in central Uganda. The 60-watt rooftop solar panel system could power three lights in the four-room, off-the-grid house.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Tags
- solar
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Weekly Roundup: Extending Customer Credit – the Way to Scale?
This week we received the exciting news that VisonSpring has sold more than one million pairs affordable eyeglasses customers living at the Base of the Pyramid. But for every VisionSpring, surely there are countless other social startups that have failed to reach scale, and not necessarily because they are marketing an inferior product. It might be because their customers cannot reasonably afford to make a purchase, even one as “small” as $10. This is the need identified by Invested Development, which announced the creation of the Impact Factoring Fund, (IFF) that looks to provide short-term liquidity and working capital to early stage, high-growth companies in emerging markets.
- Categories
- Energy
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The Energy Access Crunch: Exploring Public-Private Solutions for Getting Power to the People
The lack of energy access is a drag on human development around the world, and it will take an increase in funding as well as the public and private sectors working together to solve this problem. That was one of the conclusions at the workshop, “Fairness and Transparency in Climate Funding: Taking into account the Needs of the Poorest Populations” on May 11 in Bangkok.
- Categories
- Energy