Monthly Archives: January 2016

Jim Rogers is the former CEO and chairman of the board for Duke Energy. He continues to advocate for sustainable energy access as written in his book Lighting the World. More about Jim’s book can be found at https://jimrogersenergy.com/. Here he discusses the fight against energy poverty.

United Solar Initiative: Since leaving Duke you’ve written a book called Lighting the World, which points to the current state of world energy poverty. Why is energy poverty an issue?

Jim Rogers: It’s my judgement that access to electricity is a basic human right. It is foundational in that it enables medical care, education, economic development, and more efficient farming. And the efficient farming is especially important given that about 50% of people in low-income countries– and I always say low-income countries rather than developing countries because I think it’s a better way to talk about it– but in low-income countries, farmers make a living in the agriculture sector.

And the UN has finally found that electricity should be one of their sustainable development goals for 2015- 2030. And this is a breakthrough for the UN because when setting their goals in 2000, they failed to recognize access to electricity as a millennium development goal.

 

USI: What are the specific benefits to fighting this form of poverty in our world?

Rogers: I think that the math is stunning. About 1.2 billion people have no access to electricity. Of the 1.2 billion, 600 million plus are in Sub-Saharan Africa, roughly 300 million are in India, another 100 million in Indonesia, and the remainder scattered around the world. So bringing access to electricity basically enables societies to develop and to grow, to start to lift people from poverty. And actually, if you study the US, a high-income country in the world today, in the 20th century providing access to electricity and all that enables fundamentally changed our economy, transformed the lives of people, extended the life expectancy for both men and women. So access to electricity has played a very dominant role in the development and the cultures of high-income countries.

 

USI: What role do you see for-profit energy companies/utilities playing in the fight to end energy poverty?

Rogers: My focus has been on the 1.2 billion people in rural areas of low-income countries. There has been a reluctance of state-owned utilities to extend the grid to these rural areas. And the important fact today is that the price of solar has fallen to a place where it is cheaper and matches the capability to pay better in these low-income countries than extending the grid. So the important point is we are able to bring electricity to these people, help lift them from poverty, give them an opportunity to own and then deploy technologies up the ladder of the various solar technologies. And we do all of this in a way that puts them on a trajectory that allows them to be climbing out of poverty without adding to the carbon emissions in the world in the same way it has occurred in high-income countries.

 

USI: You’ve advocated for energy efficiency and a transition to a low-carbon future. What do you see as key to that transition?

Rogers: Well the transition is already underway. And in the last decade the falling renewable cost, specifically of wind and solar, has really driven the replacement of coal plants with natural gas, especially shale gas, which has 50% the carbon footprint of coal. Renewables have zero emissions, and at the end of the day, they have grown dramatically. The way I think about it is, whether you’re in a high-income or low-income countries, five years ago solar wasn’t as cost effective or competitive as other alternatives. And actually, my writing of the book couldn’t have occurred five years ago because I couldn’t have made the case solar was a more affordable alternative and matches the increasing capability to pay as people get on the income trajectory brought on by greater economic development. So I think the development of solar and wind is transforming how we provide electricity both in the US and other high-income countries as well as in the rural areas of low-income countries around the world.

 

USI: Why solar?

Rogers: There are several things that underpin the importance of solar today. One is you’ve seen the fallen price that makes it affordable and competitive with other alternatives. The other reason solar is so important- it is basically carbon free and allows us to continue crossing the bridge to a low-carbon world. Coupled with that is the fact you’ve seen the emergence of storage technologies, which really, either way, addresses the intermittency of solar. So my belief is that in the longer-term, and you’ve already seen this recently, solar trumps wind because it can be distributed. And at the end of the day, solar will be cheaper, solar will be distributed, solar will lead to a more resilient grid in the high-income countries and will lift people out of poverty in the low-income countries.

 

Article- Meredith Ratledge

Photo- Clean Technica

United Solar Initiative could not have found a better fit. When World Vision originally reached out to United Solar Initiative, members of USI knew good things were in store.

World Vision, the largest nonprofit provider of clean water in the world, is making strides to expand its efforts in drinking water provision. The organization recently extended its already bold commitments to provide clean water in the coming years. Currently reaching a new person with water every 30 seconds, by 2020 the organization hopes to provide clean water to a new person every 10 seconds. And by 2030, it plans to provide water to every person in every community that it serves.

For World Vision, an expansion of these efforts means an expansion of its partnerships in order to do its work both more efficiently as well as on a larger scale. That’s where a partnership with USI is brought into the picture.

Over the next several years, United Solar Initiative will solarize 100 World Vision water pump systems in 10 different countries, the majority to be installed in West African countries. The average solar panel system, at 2500 watts, will provide the energy needed to give water access to between 1500 and 3000 people, depending on the community size and pump system type.

Keith Kall, senior director of strategic partnerships with World Vision, spoke to the nature of the relationship.

“Some of these communities where we work are off-grid, or if they are near or on-grid, the grid is really unreliable. So to have a solar company or solar-focused nonprofit is a great partner to be associating with,” he said.

A partnership with an organization like United Solar Initiative helps World Vision to better its potential as a water provider as USI offers solar energy solutions. Kall noted that through such a partnership, where USI provides solar panels and installation expertise, “that really allows us to use the money that we do have to go farther.”

Steven Thomsen, co-founder and vice president of USI, believes that the partnership with World Vision “lets us both play to our strengths.” The partnership “allows us to focus on our core competency,” deploying solar power in developing countries, and allows USI to “start learning about clean water (provision),” he said.

Thomsen attended the World Vision WASH conference, the Water and Sanitation Hygiene community of practice meeting, hosted in Ethiopia in May of 2015. He described that the conference brought together World Vision’s partners, donors, and supporters from across the world in order to plan a scaling up of World Vision’s efforts. He was not only impressed by the organization’s ambitious new goals for 2030, but also the different approaches its partners are taking to aid in solutions to the water crisis, citing new water tablets as well as the creation of a Sesame Street Character that addresses the importance of clean and safe drinking water access.

“There’s so much more to solving (the crisis) than putting in wells,” Thomsen said.

This certainly holds true of Kall’s outlook, who points to water as a key aspect of a country’s development. World Vision’s model in these communities, in most situations, is water pump installations that are paralleled by providing other development efforts — education, economic development, and health programs. While this model looks different for every community, he notes that “everything is in fact predicated on water.”

Without the water that these communities need, Kall explained that underperformance becomes a reoccurring motif in terms of meeting economic development, education, and health goals. When women and children have to spend time each day walking for drinking water, “a large part of your population (is) not engaged in economic development work… and a lot of young children don’t go to school,” he said.

“Eighty percent of diseases are water-related in the developing world, so any type of health interventions will underperform as well without access to clean drinking water,” he said.

It is Kall’s personal belief that these “interventions are accelerated once clean drinking water is available.”

This water crisis is an issue United Solar Initiative originally came into contact with when completing its first projects in San Ramone, Nicaragua in the summer of 2014. Thomsen recalled his experiences there.

“We asked the community members, ‘What are the biggest needs you see on a daily basis?’ One of their first responses was, ‘We need access to clean water.’ So we thought, okay, how can we use electricity to help bring clean water to people?” he said.

USI had been hoping to address the water crisis issue since this encounter but was unsure how to overcome the barriers put in place by the complexity of the water pump installation process. This question was answered by the offer extended by World Vision — a perfect way for USI to create this shift in its approach.

“Ultimately our goal is to provide electricity to people living without it, and that can take a lot of different forms… Our core mission remains the same, but what that electricity is being used for is changing,” Thomsen explained.

Co-founder and President Alex Wilhelm expressed his enthusiasm for what the relationship has to offer, noting that World Vision is “giving us the perfect way to go about our mission.” He is excited particularly by the project’s “scalability and the ability to impact thousands of people.”

Wilhelm hopes that these projects will mark the foundation of a long-term relationship. In such a relationship, USI hopes to be a part of many more projects beyond the initial 100 that have been outlined, perhaps to become the partners solely responsible for World Vision’s solar installations.

Kall explained that World Vision’s 2020 and 2030 goals would be unattainable without good partners. As United Solar Initiative becomes key to helping attain these goals, it will be allowed to expand its horizons, redefining what it means to provide solar energy solutions. Through this partnership, United Solar Initiative’s work has been given more purpose, as it hopes to create a larger impact on the developing world. Throughout the relationship, the organization hopes to see its empowerment of developing communities through solar energy come to fruition.

Article By: Meredith Ratledge