12 results · grouped by type
Barefoot College — Solar MamasTrains illiterate rural women as solar engineers who electrify their own villages.Solar Mamas MalawiEight Malawian women trained at Barefoot College return home to deliver rural solar electrification.Husk Power Systems - biomass+solar hybrid mini-gridsHusk Power Systems, founded in 2008 in Bihar, started out generating electricity with biomass gasifiers that used rice husk to electrify off-grid villages. Between 2007 and 2013 it built close to 80 plants that provided electricity to about 250,000 people in 350 villages in India and Africa. In the mid-2010s it pivoted to solar+storage+biomass hybrid mini-grids capable of delivering 24/7 power. By 2024-2025 it operates more than 400 mini-grids in India and Nigeria.Gram Oorja - community solar micro-gridsGram Oorja Solutions, founded in 2008 in Pune, designs and installs solar micro-grids operated by the communities themselves in remote off-grid villages, many of them tribal. Its pilot in Darewadi (Maharashtra, 2012) was a 9.36 kWp solar micro-grid for 39 households that also powers a mill and water pumps. The model is Build-Operate-Transfer: a village trust collects tariffs, manages maintenance and takes ownership, with strong participation of women. It has been replicated in more than 150 villages across several states.Kenya Off-Grid Solar Access Project (KOSAP)KOSAP is a flagship program of the Kenyan government (Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, financed by the World Bank, USD 150M IDA) to bring electricity and clean cooking to 14 underserved counties in the arid belt and the north. Approved by the World Bank Board on 26 Jul 2017 and effective on 8 Mar 2018, it combines results-based financing and debt facilities to deploy stand-alone solar systems, solar mini-grids and clean cooking solutions through private providers. A second restructuring (3 Oct 2024) extended the closing date to 30 Sep 2026; it targets ~1.3 million people and (2025 communication) is expanding to about 430,000 households.SteamaCo smart-metering platform for rural solar mini-gridsSteamaCo began in 2012 as a developer of rural mini-grids in Kenya (with origins in the NGO Access:Energy, founded in 2009 on the shores of Lake Victoria; first microgrid with smart metering in 2013 on Remba Island) and later pivoted to a smart metering and remote management software company. Its cloud platform lets independent operators sell energy on prepaid accounts with mobile money, monitor consumption in real time and detect faults remotely. The pivot from asset owner to software provider is the innovation lesson. In 2024 it acquired Shyft Power Solutions.
Evidence 4
What are we doing here? Analyzing fifteen years of energy scholarship and proposing a social science research agendaElsevier, Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 1, pp. 1-29 · 2014 · paperdocumentMeasuring energy poverty: Focusing on what mattersElsevier, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 16(1), pp. 231-243 · 2012 · paperdocumentA cross-sectional review: Impacts and sustainability of small-scale renewable energy projects in developing countriesElsevier, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 40, pp. 1-10 · 2014 · paperdocumentAnd then they lived sustainably ever after? - Assessment of rural electrification cases by means of indicatorsElsevier, Energy Policy, vol. 36(7), pp. 2674-2684 · 2008 · paperdocument