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Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumAfrica's Quiet Solar Revolution
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/28269-africas-quiet-solar-revolutionBy Tanzanian standards, Nosim Noah is not poor. A tall, handsome woman with the angular features of her fellow Masai tribe members, Ms. Noah makes a good living selling womens and childrens clothes in the markets of this northern Tanzanian city. The four-bedroom brick house she shares with her parents and three children outside town has many modern comforts: mosquito screens on the windows and doors, a gas cookstove, and, most important, a faucet with running water in the back of the yard, next to a stall with a working toilet.
But despite their relative prosperity, up until late 2013, the family had no electricity.
We waited 10 years for them to turn the power on 10 years and nothing, says Noah.
Then, one afternoon, the Noahs had an unexpected knock on the door. An agent for a new electrical company called M-POWER said that, for a sign-up fee of only 10,000 shillings ($6), he could install a fully functioning solar home system in their house enough to power several LED lights and a radio. The payoff was immediate. While Noah used to spend $18 a month on kerosene, she now pays a monthly average of $11 for her solar lighting, and she no longer has to go into town to charge her cellphone. The person most affected, though, may be her 2-year-old daughter, Emilia, who is afraid of the dark.
She would cry every night every single night, says Noah. It was a struggle to put her to sleep. Now, with a new light above her bed, it makes a huge difference, she says.
The changes taking place under the Noahs roof are emblematic of a quiet revolution sweeping across much of rural Africa and the developing world.
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Africa's Quiet Solar Revolution (Original Post)
eridani
Jan 2015
OP
niyad
(112,432 posts)1. thank you for posting this. very interesting.
hunter
(38,264 posts)2. The database on your link is down, but I found the article here:
quadrature
(2,049 posts)3. welcome news. this is where solar PV should be used first...
to disconnect the world
from OPEC.