Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Over one billion people around the world lack access to clean and sustainable energy. While the cost of solar power has decreased, most often proposed solutions bring technologies to energy-poor communities through top-down approaches, importing consumer models without turning over skills or ways to repair the technology. The result is continued dependence on imported solar solutions. 
The Liter of Light redesigns solar lighting for the developing world: our simple, two-step technology creates local jobs, teaches green skills, and empowers energy-poor communities. Our grassroots green lighting movement embodies the principle that anyone can become a solar engineer. ‚Ä®

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Working on the ground has proven that large-scale solar panel installations fail. Most solutions bring technologies to energy-poor communities through top-down approaches, importing models without turning over skills or ways to repair them. The result is developing countries‚ dependence on imported solutions to solve local problems. During national disasters, with communication and transportation networks down, communities become even more isolated from assistance and vulnerable to increased crime and security issues. As the touchstones for their families in the home, the burden of no access to reliable, safe, and affordable electricity falls disproportionately on women. 

In November 2013, SuperTyphoon Haiyan ravaged the Philippines. With 300+ kph winds and storm surges in the tens of meters, 10,000 people lost their lives and thousands more were displaced. With infrastructure in tatters and no access in or out of the city, many women, children, and the elderly - the most vulnerable populations after a disaster - were living in risk of crime, theft, rape, or worse. Liter of Light @ Night was the first group on the ground who put up emergency street lighting systems built within the community, even in a time of disaster, using locally available parts. These corridors of light reduced the incidence of crime by up to 70%. This was our first intervention in providing community-built solar lighting in a post-disaster context, and we consider this to be the start date for our activities. 


By deploying our solar lighting solutions in post-disaster communities, we eased safe movement and reduced crime and transportation risks for women, children, and other vulnerable populations. 

Since then, we have involved local women‚ cooperatives in the building process, we are building a cadre of solar engineers with technical skills to solve energy poverty in their community while ensuring that they earn at every step and maintain ownership over the technology. At each step of the process, the local community is engaged in the planning and development of the project through community consultation and partnerships. 

Our core group of solar engineers and technicians are also comprised of people who have previously been marginalized, such as women in correctional facilities, or persons with disabilities who are normally not afforded the opportunity to participate in gainful employment or livelihood projects like Liter of Light @ Night. 

Our beneficiaries don‚ t just include those who receive our lighting technologies (the end users); they also include everyone who has benefited from our knowledge and skills transfer - volunteers from youth groups, corporate partners, and businesses; womens‚ cooperatives; micro- and SME-business associations, and others. 

Our current Light It Forward campaign has reached those who would not traditionally be activated by social development campaigns, including thousands of youth who answered our challenge to build solar lights from home. Through our campaign, we have been able to partner with local celebrities and influencers with an estimated reach of 30 million viewers to educate, inform, and mobilize Filipinos about energy poverty and what they can do to help from the safety of home.

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