News and views

Time to take recycling seriously – SolarAid wins Solar E-waste challenge

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 […]

A tale of 2 million

  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 […]

Raising awareness about Energy Poverty in ‘The City of Lights’

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 […]

The future of finance – SolarAid wins innovation challenge

  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. […]

Going beyond ‘business as usual’ in Malawi

  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 […]

Are we leaving no one behind or everyone?

  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 […]

Solar Rollers cycling to reach Zambia’s rural areas

  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 […]

International Day of Light

  Today is the International Day of Light…a day in which we, at SolarAid, invite you to pause and take a moment to think about how important light actually is. Take a moment to imagine not being able to turn on a light in the evening, when it starts to get dark. It will change what […]

Project Switch launched in Malawi

  We are excited to announce that, on April 1st, we launched our new innovations project, ‘Project Switch,’ together with the community in Mandevu village in Kasungu. The launch was a wonderful moment of celebration in the village, with amazing singing, drumming and dancing. The reason for celebration, was that this project is bringing access […]

Celebrating new life this World Health Day

  On Sunday, it was World Health Day. At SolarAid, we’ve worked closely with partners over the years to bring power and lighting to health facilities across Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. We believe that access to electricity is a vital ingredient to enable a health facility to provide access to quality health care. In […]