A candle might mean something different to me than it does to you. I’ve heard stories from the UK of using candles at Christmas, on a romantic occasion, or even with a bath. In Malawi, we have no choice but to use candles made from crude oil to try and light our homes. Thanks […]
It was when I met 9-year-old Alinafe in Mandevu village, Malawi, that I truly understood the cost of a candle. Driven by determination to do well in her upcoming school exam, the little girl had gone to the village trading centre to purchase a candle after the family’s battery-torch had run out. This single […]
With such high temperatures in the UK this week, it seems apt Solarcentury would make its biggest ever donation of £528,527 to SolarAid – as covered by the Guardian. Here are three reasons why we are celebrating today: Rising from the ashes We have shared with you the difficult times SolarAid had when we catalysed the markets of Kenya […]
Often when delivering talks, in meetings or discussing our work to anyone and everyone who will listen, people ask ‘can the solar lights be recycled?’ There has never been a good enough answer. For years, the solar lights we sell have been made hard to ‘tamper’ with or reverse engineer by the manufacturers, making repairs […]
When you’ve done something once you’d think it would be easier the second time around. SolarAid has just reached its second million for solar lights distributed in Africa The first solar light was sold in Kenya in 2008, the first million reached in April 2014, six years later. We celebrated with our supporters that achievement […]
In November last year, SolarAid attended Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Discover 2018 in Madrid – an exhibition showcasing the latest technology for business and IT professionals. Here, a human-sized robot packed 1,500 of our SM100 solar lights to be sent off to three projects in Zambia. HPE was pleased with its success and so invited […]
In the burgeoning ‘solar revolution’ of sub-Saharan Africa, we are seeing an incredible number of people being reached with clean and affordable energy for the first time. When we started 13 years ago, it was just us. Now there are hundreds of companies looking to serve people with solar energy. However, growth is limited. […]
We are excited to share the news that our SunnyMoney team in Malawi has set up two new solar light libraries which are designed to help enable universal access to clean, renewable, light. While we have led the way in Malawi, selling over a quarter of a million solar lights across the country, we know that […]
Last week saw the release of the Global Off-Grid Solar Market Report, which rightly celebrated the fact that ‘Today, more people have access to solar power in their homes and businesses than ever before.’ It went on to recognise that nearly 1 billion people still live with no access to modern energy and that off-grid solar lighting […]
SunnyMoney has launched a new, eco-friendly, fleet of bicycles to help sales agents bring solar lights to rural communities across Zambia. We call them the Solar Rollers! The bikes not only look cool – they help sales agents move around more quickly and visit harder-to-reach places. As Chanda Kombe explains: ‘Some of our sales […]