President Obama Commits to Solar Power Investments

President Obama discusses about solar power to the audience during a stop in Nevada. Solar power will be part of a new initiative to bring electricity to millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.

          Along with more than $9 billion in private investments, the United States will be committing more than $7 billion in the next five years towards bringing electricity to millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa, President Obama had said on Sunday in South Africa. "Access to electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age," Obama said in announcing the solar initiative, known as Power Africa. "It's the light that children study by, the energy that allows an idea to be transformed into a real business. It's the lifeline for families to meet their most basic needs. And it's the connection that's needed to plug Africa into the grid of the global economy."
        Sub-Saharan Africa compromises 48 nations. Among the countries to be targeted initially are Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. "These countries have set ambitious goals in electric power generation and are making the utility and energy sector reforms to pave the way for investment and growth," the White House said. The more than $7 billion in United States investment will include up to $5 billion in support from the United States Export-Import Bank.
       "More than two-thirds of the residents of sub-Saharan Africa lack access to power," the president said. "In rural areas of the region, more than 85% of people don't have electricity. Power Africa will deliver electricity to cities, villages, and farms throughout sub-Saharan Africa." According to the International Energy Agency, sub-Saharan Africa will need more than $300 billion in investment to provide power for everyone by 2030. "Power Africa will supply electricity to at least 20 million households and businesses," the White House said.

Startup's Goal: To Advance Solar Energy in Developing Countries

    At age 19, Eden Full had left Princeton University to develop her invention, the SunSaluter. The $25 solar-panel rotator, which she claims can increase a solar panel's efficiency by up to 40%, is designed to benefit those in developing countries because it is easy to assemble and doesn't require electricity. To start up such an invention, she has spent the last two years attending a schedule of client meetings, research and design, and field testing underwritten by the Ashoka Foundation, the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, and the Thiel Fellowship, which provides no-strings-attached grants of $100,000 to promising young startups.
     While her company, Roseicollis Technologies Inc., generates enough revenue to cover costs, it's expanding in terms of size and reach. She has one full-time employee and three part-time designers and project developers, and is working on partnerships with organizations in South Africa, Indonesia, Kenya, and the Philippines. In 2011, she also has been featured on Forbes' list of 30 promising energy innovators under 30.
      This month, Full had made an appearance on a panel at the Clinton Global Initiative University, an annual event that gathers enterprising college students and big names such as Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and the Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert, to discuss the future of electricity. She is currently aged 21 and living in Berkeley, California, where she plans to return to Princeton University in the Fall while managing her team in between classes via Skype.

Eden Full

      Recently, Full has also been chosen for an interview by Entrepreneur to clarify reasons of how she was able to think of such a brilliant idea as well as having experiences being a young student to suddenly being an entrepreneur. She had discussed that her "first experiment was a desktop solar car I built at age 10, and I kept experimenting from there. I brought the idea of the SunSaluter to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair my junior year in high school, and the girl next to me was from Indonesia. She said 'This is a cool idea. You should deploy it in my country because everywhere outside of Jakarta lacks electricity.' I was so open-minded at the time. It was the first suggestion that came along and it happened to be a good one."
      When asked to also comment on how life has been after Princeton and the benefits and drawbacks of stepping outside the traditional education barrier, she replied, "I felt a lot of freedom to finally be out in the real world and do what I wanted. I moved to the Bay Area. I could say, 'Hi, I don't have a college degree but I'm working on this.' People don't even bat an eye. Thanks to Ashoka Foundation, I had the funding to travel the globe and see what communities in the developing world are like, so I can design something that's relevant to them. We also won an award from the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge that we've directed toward product development and team building."
       Finally, as the interview draws to a close, she comments advice as well to other future entrepreneurs of all ages who are thinking of stepping outside the traditional path: "It can be scary to question one's life trajectory and make a decision to change it. But one of the best things I ever did was learn not to live the default." Therefore, any other future entrepreneurs out there, who also believe they can make it far, don't be afraid to step out. If you think you're able to succeed, then show others you can.

Solar Power brings 16Mbps Broadband to Towns without Electricity

     White space networks have yet to revolutionize Internet access but they still have hope in creating a drastic impact in countries that have lack the consistency of Internet access. A new project of the power of white space networks is arising in Kenya as a solar-powered network brings Internet to people who aren't connected to an electrical power grid.
      The previous month, Microsoft, along with Kenyan government officials, deployed the network in various areas in Kenya. It is currently serving a health clinic in Burguret, a primary and secondary school in Male, a secondary school in Gakawa, and a library in Laikipia. The network is planned to be expanded to 20 other locations in the next coming months.
       Director of technology policy at Microsoft, Paul Garnett recalls that "down in the valley, nobody has electricity." However, some areas did have mobile Internet access, but "it's so expensive that nobody ever uses it," says Garnett. Electricity is not completely unavailable but it is said that it is scarce. For example, a school has electricity going into the principal's office but it is unavailable anywhere else.
       This is where solar power comes in; specifically, 4.5 kilowatt hours of energy per day are derived from 7 square-meter panels. "During the day the solar panel is providing enough to run the network and provide some charging capability, and then in evenings there is this battery backup that can continue to provide broadband access, plus you have excess capacity for overnight charging," Garnett said. "Think of the school scenario where you've got a computer lab that the kids can use during of the day, and drain down the batteries in the tablets during the day. And then in the evening you have a charging station where all the tablets are plugged in and can recharge overnight."

African huts glow with solar power

KIPTUSURI, Kenya - Sara Ruto's yearn for electricity began with a purchase of her first cellphone for receiving money transfers, contacting relatives, or even calling nearby markets for the prices of chicken. However, powering her phone was no simple matter, due to the fact that there is no electricity to begin with in farming villages residing in Kenya. Therefore, Ruto walked 2 miles to hitch a 3 hour ride on a motorcycle taxi bound to Mogotia, the nearest town with electricity  to charge her phone for 30 cents. It doesn't end there; with such high demand of locals needing to charge their phones, Ruto has no choice but to leave her phone there for 3 days before returning home. However, Ruto's distressful routine ends in February when the family saves up their money as well as selling their cattle for a solar panel made from China costing them $80 but well worth the investment. The solar panel provides enough electricity to charge their phones and also running 4 overhead lights with switches. Ever since Ruto had hooked up her solar panel, her children of six drastically improved their school grades from having light in their home as well as avoiding burns from kerosene lamps.

Sara Ruto holds a small solar-powered LED light, part of a system that also charges cell phones, at her home in Kiptusuri, Kenya. Ruto, who used to travel miles to charge her mobile phone at the nearest town with electricity, purchased a solar panel for about $80 to charge her phone and power several lights.

Ed Ou / New York Times News Service

Thanks to this solar panel, Sara Ruto no longer takes a three-hour taxi ride to a town with electricity to recharge her cellphone.(Ed Ou/The New York Times)