Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Our project was formed to address the lighting needs for many rural homes for the poor who currently use kerosene. Electrification rate in Kenya is approximately 50% overall and in the rural areas it is below 25% for most parts of the country. The poor population in the rural areas use kerosene that they buy in small quantities. By using high quality PAYG solar lanterns, we are able to provide basic energy services for lighting and phone charging for many poor people in remote villages that were previously using kerosene for lighting and generators for phone charging.

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Best Estimate of GHG Avoidance/Reduction of This Project (Tonnes CO2 Equivalent/Year):

Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

Our project is contributing to poverty reduction by using locally available energy resource, solar, instead of kerosene that is imported. Use of solar energy for lighting is cheaper than kerosene in the long run. The customers also charge their mobile phones at home using the solar lantern instead of taking it to the shopping center where there are diesel generators that provide electricity. The project helps the girl child by providing suitable lighting for those that attend days school to do their evening studies so that they are able to compete with those in boarding schools (while the boys may be able to stay late in the schools where appropriate lighting is provided for evening studies, in most cases, in the rural areas it is not safe for the girl child, and in the homes of the poor, they may not have enough money even to buy kerosene for the students to do their evening studies) 
The solar products we supply have a function for flushing light and this is used by farmers to keep away wild animals at night (for those doing crop farming there are wild animals that come at night to damage their crops and for pastoralists there are predators such as hyenas that attack their herds at night)

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