We are excited to announce that our SunnyMoney Malawi initiative has won the Energy Globe National Award! The Award recognises SunnyMoney Malawi’s creative distribution model and innovation through offering the world’s most affordable solar light, the SM100, and through pioneering pay-as-you-go (PAYG) ownership schemes for affordable solar lights; breaking down the affordability barrier for families […]
SolarAid and Yingli Green Energy first joined forces to try and deliver the most affordable solar light to Africa in 2014. SolarAid’s feedback from the field, based on many thousands of interview interactions, was that low cost was the single most important consideration for potential buyers. There were also other important considerations, all of which […]
We are very pleased to report our SM100 solar light has been featured on both the BBC website and in the Financial Times (paywall). The articles agreed that the SM100 – developed by SolarAid with Chinese solar giant Yingli, and designed by cool UK design company Inventid – presents a great way of fighting poverty in Africa and elsewhere. With the SM100, SolarAid […]
We are very happy to announce that our little solar light, the SM100, has now been fully tested by Lighting Global and is now certified as meeting their quality standards. Lighting Global is the World Bank Group’s platform to support sustainable growth of the international off-grid solar market as a means of rapidly increasing energy access to […]
SolarAid is celebrating after being shortlisted for the UK’s longest running and most prestigious awards programme, championing responsible business in the UK and abroad. Now in their 20th year, the Awards champion the most inspiring businesses who are making a difference by taking action to build more inclusive workplaces, stronger communities and tackle our biggest environmental […]
SolarAid is fortunate in being able to monitor its impacts and costs better than most charities. Impacts can be measured in detail because the product of our work is very tangible both at the level of the individual and of the nation. We sell solar lights to people in Africa, on a non-profit basis, […]
The following is a statement by Dr Jeremy Leggett, Executive Chair of SolarAid, to the Start Up Energy Transition Tech Festival, Berlin, 20th March 2017: I speak today about the wider context of all the wonderful innovation and creative disruption we are hearing about from around the world today. My message is about how to […]
Last week, FINCOOP, Malawi’s largest financial cooperative, signed an agreement with our African social enterprise SunnyMoney, who distribute solar products to people in the rural areas of Malawi, Zambia and Uganda. Fincoop has a large membership in Malawi, reaching remote parts of the country and SunnyMoney hopes to reach that market where Fincoop has many teachers as its members. […]
SolarAid is extremely proud to have launched ‘the world’s most affordable solar light’. After years in development, this little light, called the SM100, is now being distributed across Africa via our social enterprise, SunnyMoney. The SM100, developed for SolarAid in conjunction with Yingli Solar and UK industrial design firm inventid, incorporates feedback collected from SolarAid’s decade […]
Solar lights don’t just replace dirty, unhealthy kerosene lamps. You may have read in earlier blogs how solar lights are being used as tools for promoting peace and development amongst bitterly-divided communities. This novel approach, introduced in 2013 by Joseph Karanja in his home-town of Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County, started with just 14 families. In 2017, the 3,000 members of what has come […]