News and views

Lighting strategy for West African states

Officials from 18 Ministries of Energy met in Benin in October to continue development of an Efficient Lighting Strategy for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Our very own Charlie Miller and Andreas Adam from Osram represented GOGLA at the event. Originally focused on the transition to efficient lighting on-grid, Charlie and Andreas worked […]

Light IQ help light up Africa

We are proud to announce Light IQ’s recent success with their “Lighting up Africa” campaign. They reached their 2013 fundraising target, which would be enough to provide funds to install solar kits in Chigawi School in the Mzuzu district, Northern Malawi. Light IQ, a leading lighting design consultancy, was the first company from the lighting […]

The European Solar Prize 2013

Well we’ve only gone and done it again… this evening our chairman, Jeremy Leggett, will be picking up our fourth award of the year! This one comes from EUROSOLAR and is a really big deal in the solar industry. The European Solar Prize awards organisations taking innovative and pioneering action in promoting widespread use of […]

Aid Agencies and Off-Grid Lighting

SolarAid Partnerships Manager, Charlie Miller (pictured), has published a piece on the role aid agencies should play in meeting the energy needs of off-grid communities.  He believes that there are two main objectives agencies should focus on in order to foster the necessary conditions for an effective and sustainable solar market to develop.   These […]

Business Fights Poverty

Last week we celebrated Impact Week – all the great things solar light customers have told us about how solar lights have changed their life. This week if you want to learn more about how it is we collect that research, and use it, then you’re in for a treat… Our Social Impact & Research Manager Kat […]

Impact Week

I’m Kat Harrison, the Social Impact & Research Manager at SolarAid. I started at SolarAid just over a year ago to set up our impact measurement and research function; if you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know all of this, of course. In just one year, we’ve made incredible progress and today marks the release […]

Celebrate National Customer Service Week

A charity with customers? This week is National Customer Service Week. You might wonder what National Customer Service week has to do with a charity working in Africa, but as many of you already know – we don’t believe in giving solar lights away. We sell them through our social enterprise SunnyMoney, at a full but fair […]

Jeremy Leggett nabs prestigious gong

SolarAid and Solarcentury Chairman, Jeremy Leggett, has been recognised for his ‘outstanding contribution to the global solar PV industry’ with another top gong at the Solar Industry Awards 2013. David Ridsdale, editor in chief at Solar International says: “Jeremy Leggett set himself up as an environmental champion who wanted to also make use of his business and […]

Senegal World Bank project success

You might remember us talking lots about our exciting new project in Senegal – not only a new country for SolarAid’s social enterprise, SunnyMoney, but also a new model for getting solar lights to rural Africa which was developed by the SunnyMoney Brains innovations unit. The World Bank/Lighting Africa funded SunnyMoney to deliver this project in partnership with the Senegalese Rural Electrification Agency and the Ministry of […]