This is Part One of a five-part series on Renewable Energy for Africa
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Countries across Africa are enduring power generation crises, and others will in the near future. To avoid them, some are investing billions of dollars in new coal-fired power plants that harm the environment, potentially dangerous nuclear energy projects and huge hydroelectric schemes that cut people off from water sources.
Environmentalists and clean power proponents argue that the money would be far better spent on much smaller, but ultimately further reaching, renewable energy ventures concentrated at village and town level.
A pioneer in solar energy, Bob Freling, said big, conventional power projects often benefit only urban populations, while hundreds of millions of rural Africans continue to languish in poverty caused largely by a lack of electricity.
For almost 20 years, as director of the Washington DC-based Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) NGO, Freling has helped provide access to clean, sustainable solar energy to more than a million people in 20 developing countries.
He’s known internationally as “The man who wants to light up Africa” because of his conviction that access to electricity is a basic human right, not a privilege. Freling advises world leaders and the United Nations on development through solar power.
In 2008, Queen Noor of Jordan presented him with the King Hussein Leadership Prize in honor of his efforts to promote sustainable development, human rights, equity and peace.
In an interview with VOA, Freling said, “It makes me sad when I look at that satellite image of earth at night and see Africa still essentially in the dark. The fact that so much of Africa is still without electricity is a huge psychological burden for the continent. It’s also a physical burden counting against Africa’s progress.”
He maintained that lack of power leads to poor quality of life, children having no futures and to disease and death. “It prevents kids from reading and studying at night. It forces families to breathe in the carcinogenic fumes of kerosene lanterns and to suffer from the fires that are caused by kerosene lamps falling down or exploding – fires that maim and kill literally thousands of people every year.”
Without electricity, Freling explained, many Africans can’t earn money. “In terms of their economic lives, their productive day is done as soon as the sun goes down. There’s very little they can do to help grow their economy when there’s no access to power,” he said.
Without power, they can’t pump clean water, forcing them to trudge long and dangerous distances in search of water and wood for the fires needed to purify it. To do these basic chores of survival, many African children are forced to drop out of school.
“Without energy, these folks will not be able to experience significant improvements in their health and education. When you get right down to it, energy is the foundation for life,” Freling said.
Freling’s NGO electrifies rural areas with what he called “stand-alone photovoltaic systems.” Arrays of solar panels use cells known as photovoltaics to convert sunlight into electrical current. A battery stores the electricity and, when discharged, powers lights and other appliances. The batteries are large enough to provide several days of electricity if overcast weather prevents recharging.
“It’s one of the most gratifying parts of my job – the reactions of people who are able to flip a switch and have electric light come on for the first time. It’s a very profound experience, for them as well as for me,” Freling said. “It’s amazing to see a whole previously unknown world of opportunity suddenly open up to them, with just one light bulb coming on. To see peoples’ faces, the sheer joy on them, when they realize that they will now be able to read at night, is indescribable.”
The SELF NGO has used microfinance arrangements to enable individual families to pay for their electricity units. A photovoltaic energy system designed for home use usually costs between $550 and $650.
Freling explained, “In the long run these solar systems work out much cheaper than people having to buy kerosene and candles every week their whole lives, and they’re safe and environmentally friendly…. Families have usually paid for them within two to three years.”
SELF initially focused on electrifying individual homes. But, in the early 2000s, Freling decided to “go bigger.”