The
Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization
founded in 1990 by Neville Williams, a former journalist
who had worked as a consultant to the US Department of Energy during the
Carter administration. Acting
as a catalyst, SELF provides technical and financial assistance for solar
energy and wireless communication systems in the developing world.
SELF has launched solar rural electrification programs and enterprises
in China, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, Tanzania,
Uganda, South Africa, the Solomon Islands, Navajo Nation, Nigeria, and Bhutan.
Learn more about our projects >>
Household
Power
In its early years, SELF’s projects focused on small-scale solar
home systems made affordable through innovative use of microcredit, letting
families take small loans paid back in installments comparable to what
would otherwise be expended for a week’s supply of, for example,
kerosene.
Whether in Nepal, China, the Solomon Islands or Uganda, SELF’s household
solar power systems were embraced with enthusiasm. As a replacement for
kerosene, solar power gives cleaner, brighter and safer light for tasks
like cooking, reading, the making of handicrafts, and the doing of homework.
And microcredit makes solar home systems affordable and allows projects
to become self-expanding as loans are repaid and monies re-loaned to new
borrowers in the community. Importantly, SELF projects also give rise
to new jobs and small businesses devoted to system sales, installation
and service.
By 2000,
the viability of SELF’s model for household solar electrification was
well established, and had garnered honors including Mikhail Gorbachev’s
Green Cross Millennium Award. Additionally, SELF’s approach was inspiring
private sector interest, with several for-profit enterprises arising to
provide solar power in line with SELF’s approach.
“Whole
Village” Projects
The success of SELF’s household-focused projects has spurred a new generation
of “whole village” projects in which SELF applies solar power to broader
community needs in the realms of agriculture, health, education, water
supply, communications, and livelihoods. The goal: to apply focused amounts
of renewable energy where it will catalyze the most effective human and
economic development — quickly and sustainably. All of SELF’s whole-village
projects share core values:- Strong,
trusted local partners
- Cultural sensitivity
- Community participation and ownership, including mechanisms for the
financial participation — and responsibility — of beneficiaries
- Integration of productive end-use applications
- A focus on sustainability, via mechanisms including microcredit and
microenterprise
- Promotion of environmental health, both locally and globally
Health
Projects
SELF has a growing focus on rural health clinics, which in the developing
world are very often without electricity — or are connected to a power
grid that is unreliable, with outages that can last hours or days on end.
Bright lighting, together with vaccine refrigerators, microscopes, centrifuges,
and other medical devices are an indispensable part of modern healthcare,
and those responsible for clinics will often turn for power to a diesel
generator and, for lighting, to kerosene lamps.
SELF has
joined with the Clinton Foundation and Dr. Paul Farmer's Partners In Health in solar electrification of health clinics in
Tanzania and Rwanda. Faced with a choice between solar and diesel at five
rural health clinics in eastern Rwanda, Partners In Health took the solar
path, collaborating with SELF on systems for the communities of Mulindi,
Rusumo, Rukira, Nyarabuye, and Kirehe. The systems are solar/diesel hybrid
systems that generate 90 percent or more of their power from the sun,
with diesel generators for back-up during prolonged heavy usage, or in
periods of rain.
Education
Projects
Electric light helps to increase literacy because people can read after
dark more easily than they can by candlelight or a kerosene lamp. Schoolwork
improves and eyesight is safeguarded. Solar energy can electrify rural
schools, not just for lighting purposes, but also to power computers and
other electronic equipment. Combining solar energy with wireless communications
brings the internet to even the most remote locations.The implications
of bringing computers into rural classrooms, and wirelessly linking those
classrooms to the rest of the world, are profound. A new universe of information
and educational resources opens up. We also include solar-powered waterpumps,
letting schools develop garden plots where food can be grown for nutritious
student meals.
Addressing the earth's energy and environmental problems, while working to improve the quality of life of rural people who have yet to be connected to a fossil-fuel powered national utility grid, SELF seeks to assist developing world communities and governments in the acquisition, financing and installation of decentralized household solar electric systems that convert sunlight directly into electricity. Using the latest photovoltaic (PV) technology, SELF helps rural families make the leap from the 19th to the 21st Century.
Acting as a catalyst, SELF brokers the purchase and delivery of solar home lighting systems (SHS) working with rural solar electric associations, local PV-system suppliers, solar entrepreneurs, farmers cooperatives, donor agencies, corporations, non-governmental organizations, multilateral development banks, and governments. SELF also helps start up rural solar enterprises.
A primary mission of The Solar Electric Light Fund is to overcome institutional barriers and generate changes in attitude--in the industrial world and its donor agencies and in the developing world's governments and financial institutions--towards the understanding, acceptance and application of solar power.
SELF seeks to accelerate commercial market acceptance of solar-generated electricity in developing countries through "solar seed" projects. SELF provides technical assistance and training programs, and develops grass-roots financing mechanisms. Through media communications, educational programs, and awareness campaigns, SELF promotes decentralized green power throughout the developing world.
SELF has developed pilot PV projects in China, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, the Solomon Islands, Navajo Nation, Bhutan, and Nigeria, where SELF has demonstrated that household electricity provided by solar PV is the most reliable, affordable, and economic source of power for rural households.
After ten years catalyzing PV development, SELF has come to witness "photovoltaic rural electrification" as a commonly accepted idea. The World Bank, USAID, the U.S. Department of Energy, the European development agencies, the Asian Development Bank, and numerous bilateral donors and commercial lending institutions worldwide are all launching solar "initiatives."
The New York Times has featured photos of SELF's Solar Home Systems in China, India, and South Africa on the front page of the business section, and reported on the vast new market for off-grid solar in the developing world.
Environmental concerns are driving the quest for clean energy.
The question of how two billion people will emerge from centuries of darkness into an electrically-lighted future will be one of the critical issues of the 21st century.
|
