It is an unfortunate irony that often the poorest people pay the most for the lowest quality energy. In many areas, the rural poor pay as much as 5 USD per month for kerosene or battery power. SharedSolar is a project that attempts to develop the technology, and business case to connect these populations to better, more traditional energy sources. It does so by leveraging existing mobile networks.
With SharedSolar, rural poor consumers make payments based on their usage by using a scratch card and adding credit via SMS. The system uses a micro-grid network to connect consumers to power, and each household uses a unique prepaid metering system. A group of up to 20 consumers (individuals, households, small businesses, or schools) are all located within a 50 meter radius of a single, central power source -- such as solar panels -- connected via an underground wire.
At the same time, the SharedSolar team is testing and developing its business model to show that a case exists for micro-grids and mobile energy payment. The team launched an initial pilot in 2010 in Pelengana, Mali and currently has systems set up in Uganda and Tanzania.
MobileActive.org spoke with Matt Basinger, project lead for SharedSolar, to learn more about the overlap of mobile technology and rural power.
