Half the people in Africa, or 10% of humanity, do not have electricity or clean reliable light at night. They go to bed early, as we in the West may do if we have power cuts during a storm. The Kleinmann Center for Energy Policy shared free solar lighting kits to people living in rural Ghana. When their batteries and solar lightened the darkness, amazing things happened, that we may take for granted.
An Experiment to Lighten Darkness in Rural Africa
It would be great if we could bring grid electricity to every scattered community in rural Africa. But the cost per individual user, would be more than those living off the soil could afford. Scalable off-grid electric lighting could be a solution, but there’s a cost to that too.
The Kleinmann Center for Energy Policy decided to find out what would happen, if batteries and solar lightened the darkness in 32 villages in rural Ghana. They distributed free kits in various configurations, and then observed the impact on rural families over a year.
Each kit included a solar panel, light bulbs, and a battery with two additional USB ports. The panels could fully charge the solar batteries within 6 hours. The fully charged batteries could power the lights for 8 hours. All the participants were rural farmers with traditional unclean lighting sources.
When Darkness Lightened with Batteries and Solar
The families who received the lighting kits no longer followed the rising and setting of the sun. They remained awake until 11 p.m. or later, and woke at 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. in the morning. The communities spent their bonus hours on household chores, farming-related activities at home, socializing, and helping children with their homework.
The head teachers at the children’s schools noted improved performance in the classroom. The kids expressed themselves better, finished their homework, had fewer sick days, and were proud of their work. Their parents had improved levels of self-esteem, and were prouder of their villages too.
The overall health of the communities also improved, and they spent less on medicine. Having lights on after dark helped keep mosquitoes at bay. There were fewer snake and scorpion bites. We’re amazed how batteries and solar lightened the darkness and improved their lives.
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