Things around the world are looking a little bit brighter thanks to off-grid solar technologies. They are, for example, allowing those in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast to get clean electricity for notably less than keeping a generator on hand and the monthly cost is deducted from customers’ mobile phone air times.
Africa, of course, has 600 million people without access to electricity. Nigeria has 73 million of those and the Ivory Coast has 12 million of them. And even those that have some connection to a local grid can’t get reliable electricity. To complicate matters, the population is expanding much faster than the grids, which means that many homes have relied on kerosene, generators and torches to create light. What will small, distributed solar systems mean for Africa’s emerging economies?
