The $150 million in World Bank IDA is to be used to provide community solar mini-grids, standalone off-grid solar energy systems, solar water pumps, solar cookers and training and capacity building to as many as 1.3 million rural poor in Kenya.
The Church Pension Fund and Wespath Benefits and Investments have invested $60 million ($30 million each) in Developing World Markets’ (DWM) landmark $60.8 million ORCA (Off-grid Renewables-Climate Action) note.
USAID will award Scaling Off-Grid Energy Development Grand Challenge grants of up to $500,000 each to Sub-Saharan start-ups that demonstrate commercially promising innovations and show they’ve raised sufficient capital from private sector investors.
Uganda’s national off-grid solar and renewable power iniative brightens prospects for the economy, society and the environment. Entrepreneurial African solar start-ups are keen to contribute.
The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority has installed small-scale home solar PV-energy storage systems in 20,000 homes and counting. The sustainable energy drive just scratches the surface of the Navajo Nation’s local solar and renewable energy generation capacity, however.
A chance meeting the clean energy and water poverty he witnessed during his travels across Nicaragua and Panama led Marc Henrich to create Solubrite. Now the solar-social enterprise startup is on the road with the aim of installing another 25,000 small home solar PV systems in rural communities across the two Central American countries.
Providing mobile “pay as you go” home solar loans, Zonful Energy tapped into Kiva’s new Direct to Social Enterprise Fund to secure a $50,000 loan that will enable it to deploy the PAYG mobile payments soloution to remote and rural areas.
Expanding in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, an innovative off-grid solar energy start-up conceived at Colorado State University aims to leverage mobile micropayments to deliver low and zero-emissions electricity to residents of remote communities in Peru’s Amazon.
Two market research reports from the World Bank Group’s Global Lighting Program and GOGLA reveal growing use of off-grid solar energy and associated solar products and the beneficial impacts they’re making worldwide, particularly in rural and remote communities.
Indian mobile PAYG off-grid home solar provider Simpa Networks announced the launch of Magic TV, the country’s first solar-powered pay-as-you-go satellite TV solution.