Renewable energy in Malawi
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MALAWI, 2016/07/04
The biggest obstacle to powering off-grid homes is infrastructure.
The problem, specifically in sparsely populated areas, is a lack of power lines. Without lines going to a remote power grid, a lot of communities lack the access they need to electricity. Entire villages can remain dark. But there are ways around that.
A startup called Off-Grid Electric is looking to use cheap rooftop solar panels for energy in rural parts of Africa, instead of building expensive infrastructure.
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MALAWI, 2016/03/11
Young Kennedy is astonished. His face lights up in the single room in the straw-thatched house. So does the book he is reading with his friend, Nellie.
The two excited nine-year-olds from the village of Gumbi in western Malawi have just done what about 600 million others in sub-Saharan Africa have never been able to do – switch on an electric light in their homes to read a book in the dark.
There is a murmur of approval from the small crowd of people craning their heads through the doorway to witness the arrival of solar electricity in the village. “[These] bulbs will change lives. Our days will be longer and nights shorter. We will be like others,” says one mother, Chikumbutso Chaima. “Children will do better at school. They have a future. We have not been forgotten.”
